0. Introduction

Our society has been sustainable for centuries, but this is not guaranteed to continue in the future. The future development of our society has come under considerable pressure.

We are consuming earthly resources beyond our means and beyond the planet’s limits. It is now up to us to change the way we live and work, both in real life and in the digital space.

This book is about how we can change our digital practices and habits in order to drive positive change in the world.

If you work with digital technologies and you are ready to expand your knowledge about digital practices and sustainability, then this book is for you.

It’s a must-read for anyone curious about technology’s impact on the environment and society and the opportunities for digital sustainability. The book offers insights into current concepts and tools for working with practical digital sustainability. It will support your professional development and help anchor your future practices in more sustainable approaches.

You may be a climate optimist who believes that technological and social progress will lead us toward a more sustainable world, or a climate pessimist, concerned about the future. You may be a realist preparing for deep adaptation, or an activist promoting environmentalism for a better future. Whether you’re a sustainability advocate or a skeptic, a realist or an activist, we aim to equip you to be able to engage professionally in digital sustainability projects and make a positive impact.

The twin transition refers to the idea that two distinct but intertwined transitions are taking place in society: the digital transition and the green transition. Society is moving from analogue to digital, and from unsustainable to sustainable. One is optional, the other is essential: we can live simple lives without digital technologies, but we must turn development in a sustainable direction.

Digital technology is far from sustainable right now - and it won’t become sustainable anytime soon. It’s depleting the earth’s resources, polluting the environment, and affecting its users in negative ways. Still, there is a path to sustainable digital practices, even if it’s a long and challenging one. We must begin to work more sustainably today and embrace daily practices that push development in increasingly sustainable directions. Only then, perhaps decades or even centuries from now, can we hope to achieve anything resembling sustainable digital technology.

Design is key, sustainability must be built into digital products from their very beginning. It cannot be retrofitted. So the question becomes: How can we develop digital products and solutions in increasingly sustainable ways?

This book is written by two dedicated academics from Denmark who are active in research and teaching in the fields of IT and digital communication. Jesper Balslev and András Ács Pedersen identified a pressing need for literature on this subject. Literature that goes beyond superficial clichés and tired expressions. Their goal is to provide a methodical and thorough review of how digital actors can engage with sustainability and how they can approach this work in concrete terms.

As the book was originally written in Danish for the publisher Samfundslitteratur, some of the references are in languages other than English. References that are not in English are not linked directly from the text, but can be found in the bibliography.

Digitalization and the fight against climate change is a rapidly evolving field, so the practical chapters of this book reflect the situation as of early 2026 - but the continuously developing nature of the field is the reason why we keep the book updated online.

Bridging Sustainability and Digital Development is structured with a clear throughline connecting the chapters, making it suitable to read sequentially from start to finish. At the same time, each chapter can be read independently.

In a teaching context, educators can combine various chapters to form the basis of a course or training program. No matter how you choose to engage with the book, we hope it will be an enriching, thought-provoking, engaging - and perhaps even provocative - experience.

The book is divided into three main parts and a practical appendix. The first part of the book consists of three chapters that together form a theoretical foundation for sustainability work. This part introduces a number of key concepts in both information sustainability and technology.

• Chapter 1 focuses particularly on definitions - not only of the concept of sustainability, but also of terms related to green and digital transformation.

• Chapter 2 introduces systems thinking and critical thinking as methods that can be applied both in working with information systems and in addressing environmental, societal, and economic challenges.

• Chapter 3 provides an overview of the current state of sustainability in information technology and serves as an introduction to the specific challenges associated with the digital domain.

The second part of the book, Chapters 4–7, looks ahead and outlines practical approaches to promoting sustainability in digital projects.

• Chapter 4 discusses digital design and explores how it can be enriched with sustainability elements.

• Chapter 5 focuses on software development and provides practical examples of sustainability measures in digital systems.

• Chapter 6 examines sustainability in hardware and networks, offering examples of how digital infrastructure can be made more sustainable.

• Chapter 7 explores the connection between well-being and digital technologies, discussing concepts such as digital well-being and socially sustainable UX through concrete examples.

The third and final part of the book discusses digital sustainability in society.

• Chapter 8 describes “digital degrowth” as an alternative to traditional growth thinking and reviews examples of it.

• Chapter 9 summarizes the book and hands over the baton to the reader with the goal of putting what you’ve learned into practice.

• The appendix contains checklists and best practices that can be applied directly to digital development projects for software and hardware as well as networks. You can also access the appendix on the book’s Git page: Link to the appendix on GitHub. Here you will also find an overview of various online resources that support this book.

📖 We hope, that the following chapters will inspire and motivate you to embrace or invent digital practices that promote a sustainable future for us all, because we all share living on the same planet and we all have the potential to make the future better for ourselves and each other with digital technologies.