Heavy Cloud Computing Perceptions of innovation facilitators about tensions in sustainability and digital technology

Abstract

Digital technologies and digitalization are increasingly being used for sustainability goals, including in industrial settings. Digitalization processes also show evidence of unsustainable outcomes, as seen in the large needs of energy required by data, data-based systems, and the computing power behind them. There are other material impacts and social transformations that become obscured as digitalization becomes an integral part of everyday lives. Nevertheless, assessing the full energy and climate effects of digitalization can be challenging, especially in the use of scaling technologies like artificial intelligence, that can be used to provide previously inaccessible optimizations, while also scaling up production and consumption patterns. The point of view of industrial innovation leaders who work in sustainability-oriented organizations or firms, and whose work includes the facilitation of digitalization processes, has been scarcely researched. Especially for the Norwegian setting, a highly digitalized economy and society, with high levels of consumption, and a lively public debate on the paths of decarbonization. This thesis answers the exploratory research question of how the tensions of sustainability and digitalization are perceived by seven innovation facilitators.