IT, Sustainability and Social Responsibility

The sustainability of information technology is often not visible in our everyday use of online services and devices. Firmly outside of our view are the energy and emissions that power data centres for video streaming, the rare earth mineral extraction and global supply chains that bring us our digital devices, and the labour needed to package and deliver the stuff we order online. This course grapples with the environmental and social impacts of information technology. You will engage with critical literature on sustainability from a number of academic disciplines and will examine case studies of how IT contributes to (un-)sustainability. As a part of this, you will gain an overview of IT and sustainability as a new field of research, as well as learn about the means to develop IT for sustainability. As a core feature of the course, you will be expected to critically reflect on your own past and current project work, and identify how it might be improved in order to make sustainability a core design principle.