Digital Pathways to a Green Tomorrow
In recent years, there has been a growing focus among scholars and practitioners on the sustainability paradigm, which emphasizes the integration of social, economic, and environmental dimensions known as the triple bottom line (TBL).
As part of the European Union’s (EU) efforts to evolve into a resource-efficient and competitive economy, the European Green Deal (EGD) is an effort to realize the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Agenda 2030.
The European Green Deal is a new growth strategy that aspires to transform the EU into an enriched society, with a modern, resource-efficient, and competitive economy where there will be no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth will be decoupled from resource use.
This line outlines seven EDG goals, including supplying clean, affordable, and secure energy; mobilizing industry for a clean and circular economy; building and renovating using energy and resources efficiently; accelerating the transition to sustainable and smart mobility; designing a fair, healthy, and environmentally-friendly food system under the “Farm to Fork” initiative; preserving and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity; and achieving a zero-pollution ambition for a toxic-free environment.
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Pursuing and accomplishing these goals calls for proposing sustainable strategies to overcome the existing challenges. One such strategy has been proposed by Dr. Vranda Jain (and collaborators).
The study undertaken by them presents a detailed investigation of the role of emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence- AI, big data analytics-BDA, robots and cobots-RoCo, high-speed computing, augmented reality/virtual reality-AV/VR, blockchain technology – BCT and other cognitive technologies) in offering solutions towards a particular EDG goal and the broader green recovery pathway.
The study establishes that digital technologies strongly possess the potential to unlock EDG aims, but assessing different technologies is crucial as their influence on industry and EDG goals varies. For example, we emphasize that BDA can better facilitate the achievement of EGD1.
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This is because climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies involve handling complex models and varied information and BDA enables a systematic processing and evaluation of complex and heterogeneous data. Such an EDG-technology mapping has been done using the content analysis technique.
The study further found that among the seven EDGs, EDG 3 (mobilizing industry for a clean and circular economy), EGD4 (building and renovating in an energy and resource-efficient way) and EGD5 (accelerating the shift to sustainable and smart mobility) are more likely to encounter barriers than others. Technological factors like feasibility, sophistication, awareness, organizational challenges including inadequate financial and infrastructure support, lack of skilled labor force coupled with an inadequate policy framework on aspects like compliance, intellectual property, usage of automatic systems along with human capital impede the attainment of these EDGs, more so for SMEs.
Our research establishes that technology 4.0, specifically BDA, AI, and IoT can contribute in unleashing the barriers of these EDGs. Thus, while the study reinforces that the path to digital transformation for pursuing green recovery may not be smooth, these challenges can be addressed by interventions from policymakers.
As a part of the innovative framework, we suggest policymakers disseminate the economic and social benefits of pursuing EDG aims; increase awareness about enabling technologies and their role in unlocking EDG aims; create tax incentives for companies investing in digital technologies (such as BDA, IoT, and AI); shorten the payback of investing in digital technologies; train and develop practitioners to adapt business models towards circular economy principles.
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Full research paper can be accessed here Sharma, R., Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, A. B., Jain, V., & Shishodia, A. (2022). The role of digital technologies to unleash a green recovery: Pathways and pitfalls to achieve the European Green Deal. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 35(1), 266-294. DOI – https://doi.org/10.1108/JEIM-07-2021-0293
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