Systemic sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization: A scoping review and research agenda

Abstract

Digital technology has been understood as a General Purpose Technology (GPT) given its systemic and pervasive nature, and heralded as key to sustainability transitions. We perform a scoping review of 112 contributions to critically appraise research on the sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization. We find that many studies adopt a rather reductionist, deterministic and optimistic lens on the (potential) sustainability effects of digital technologies, mostly neglecting the systemic effects inherent to GPTs. For a better understanding of systemic sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization, we advocate the use of exploratory designs and prospective methods, and a theoretical understanding of technologies as co-evolving with institutions and practices.