Work

Digital Degrowth

Year: 2025

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: Digitalisation plays a central role in the transition to more sustainable futures. However, it also has negative impacts, such as rebound effects, significantly undermining digitalisation's efficiency gains. Digital degrowth is a relatively new concept in discourses on sustainable digitalisation. Building forth on the concept of degrowth, first proposed in 1972 and gaining strength in the past 20 years, digital degrowth refers to realigning digital technologies to become regenerative; ecological sound and socially just, while simultaneously contributing to resource efficiency in digitalisation efforts. This exploratory paper reflects on digital degrowth and the rebound effects of digitalisation.

Source: Proceedings of the 6th Product Lifetimes and the Environment Conference (PLATE2025)

DOI: 10.54337/plate2025-10296

Author: Maja Van der Velden

Institution: University of Oslo

Language: English

Topic: Green IT and Sustainability

Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Responsible consumption and production, Climate action

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: University of Bern