The clean side of Slow Tech: an overview
| Pages | 3-12 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-10-2014-0057 |
| Date | 09 March 2015 |
| Published date | 09 March 2015 |
| Author | Norberto Patrignani,Diane Whitehouse |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance |
The clean side of Slow Tech:
an overview
Norberto Patrignani
Politecnico of Torino, Torino, Italy and Uppsala University,
Uppsala, Sweden, and
Diane Whitehouse
The Castlegate Consultancy, Malton, UK
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to provide an overview of clean information and communication
technology (ICT), including a brief review of recent developments in the eld and a lengthy set of
possible reading matter. The need to rethink the impact of ICTs on people’s lives and the survival of the
planet is beginning to be addressed by a Slow Tech approach. Among Slow Tech’s main questions are
these two: Is ICT sustainable in the long term? What should be done by computer ethics scholars,
computer professionals, policy makers and society in general to ensure that clean ICT can be produced,
used and appropriately disposed of?
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a comprehensive review of clean
tech-related literature and an investigation of progress made in the clean tech eld.
Findings – This opening paper of a Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society
special session aims to provide an overview of clean ICT, including a brief review of recent
developments in the eld and a lengthy set of possible reading matter. As a result, it is anticipated that
Slow Tech – and in this case, its second component of clean ICT – can provide a compass to steer
research, development and the use and reuse of environmentally friendly, sustainable ICT.
Originality/value – This conceptual paper emphasises that, until only recently, no one questioned the
potential long-term sustainability of ICT. This issue is, however, now very much a matter that is on the
research and teaching, and action, agenda.
Keywords Slow Tech, Green IT, Clean ICT, Future ethics, ICT sustainability
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
One of the most important messages with regard to the environment expressed over the
past four decades is that there are limits to growth, i.e. restrictions on those activities
that can have an impact on the planet (Meadows et al., 1972). Unfortunately, this
Massachusetts Institute of Technology report, which resulted from the university’s
research on world systems dynamics (Forrester, 1971), was ignored for several decades.
Over the past 25 years, thanks to the expansion of the work of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), awareness about climate change has re-emerged.
Several of the panel’s reports did not assist policy-makers to reach an agreement on the
next actions to take. However, the 2014 update of the report urges all countries to reect
on the need to revise the model of industrial development that is currently followed: CO
2
has grown by 40 per cent since the beginning of the industrial revolution and by 20 per
cent over the past 50 years. As a consequence, the average temperature of the planet has
grown by 0.89 degrees centigrade, and sea levels have risen by 0.19 metres during the
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
Slow Tech
3
Received 27 October 2014
Revised 18 December 2014
Accepted 19 December 2014
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.13 No. 1, 2015
pp.3-12
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-10-2014-0057
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