Digital sustainability



The concept of digital sustainability describes the long-term oriented production and further development of digital artifacts and addresses the tragedy of the anticommons. Originating from the term sustainability, which has been predominantly used in connection with ecological topics, the concept of digital sustainability, according to the definition of sustainable development in the Brundtland Report, refers to the conscious handling of resources in a way that their current creation and use do not impair the needs of future generations.

Definition and distinction
''Digital resources are sustainably managed when their benefit to society is maximized, so that the digital needs of current and future generations are equally met. The societal benefit is maximized when the resources are accessible to the largest number and reusable with a minimum of technical, legal, and social restrictions. Digital resources are knowledge and cultural artifacts digitally represented as text, image, audio, video, or software.'' (Definition after Dapp)

Digital sustainability distinguishes itself from the original definition of sustainability in that digital sustainability exclusively deals with intangible goods, so-called knowledge goods. Such non-physical resources are non-rivalrous, so that no consumption of the goods can occur. Nevertheless, digital resources can be both excludable (a so-called club goods) and non-excludable (a so-called public goods). Through the protection of intellectual property, digital resources can be excluded from free use and further development (see also "Copyright").

Ten preconditions of digital sustainability
In early 2017, a scientific publication appeared in Sustainability Science by Springer Publishing and in July 2017 a related article in German describing ten preconditions of digital sustainability. The first four criteria concern the properties of the digital goods, the next five criteria the properties of the ecosystem, and the last criterion the impact on society. Concrete examples of digital sustainability include Wikipedia, Linux, and OpenStreetMap.

The following ten preconditions of digital sustainability were presented with individual icons at DINAcon 2017. These are also published on Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Zero license.

Properties of the digital good
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Digital sustainability in academia
Since 2004, the definition by Marcus Dapp has been further developed and taught in a lecture of the same name at ETH Zurich. The student organizations TheAlternative and SUBDiN (University of Basel) also describe this new sustainability approach in detail. The first historical text that explained the concept in writing was a competition entry for the anniversary publication "Essays 2030" of ETH Zurich, titled "ETH Zurich - A Pioneer in Digital Sustainability". A more recent contribution describes digital sustainability in the context of Open Data and Open-Source Software.

Since 2014, the University of Bern has had the Research Center for Digital Sustainability. The center is led by Matthias Stürmer and employs around 20 staff members. The research center was established with a start-up funding of CHF 80,000 from CH Open at the Institute of Information Systems. Since 2019, the research center has been located at the Institute of Computer Science. The research center addresses issues related to open-source software, open data, linked data, open government, smart city, blockchain, smart contracts, and public procurement in research, teaching, and service provision.

Open-source software and sustainability
Based on the definition of sustainability, Thorsten Busch describes in the Open Source Yearbook 2008 the relationship between open-source software and the concept of sustainability. The extensive literature analysis addresses both the ecological aspects of information and communications technology and the societal influences of digital, intangible resources. The focus is on the problem of the digital divide, which, according to Busch, could be reduced, for example, by promoting open-source software. Busch uses the term "informational sustainability" coined by Volker Grassmuck for the same issue as the concept of digital sustainability described here.