Sustainability nowadays is the main focus of attention in society as it is the greatest challenge of our time. Global problems, from pollution to poverty and starvation, to climate change, have to be solved to create a sustainable world to live in. Technologies have created some of the problems that we face, but are also able to solve several problems.
It is clear that the fashion industry, for example, is lacking ethical and environmental standards, but there is not so much attention devoted to such standards in the technology sector. People don’t have knowledge about tech supply chains, for instance, the main components of a smartphone are cobalt, gold, silver, palladium, and tin, and these minerals are to a large extent mined in developing countries under poor regulatory frameworks which violate human rights. Such smartphones have a life around three years, and then they become obsolete, which is purposefully done by engineers without much regard for human or environmental effects. Consequently, there is now a 50 metric ton of e-waste per year (George, 2019).
One example of a company introducing ethical smartphones, is Fairphone, a Dutch company that produces ethically made phones in small quantities, which are phones that are meant to be durable, and they are made from fair trade minerals. However, this company is still small, and it is questionable whether this business model will disrupt the technology market (George, 2019).
This is only one example of a technology that is not working towards achieving sustainable development goals. Luckily, there are solutions to such technologies, however, these need to be developed further to disrupt the market. Also, there are also many sustainable technologies, such as homes that get their electricity from fossil fuel burning power plants and a smog-scrubbing tower, which try to solve the world’s sustainability issues (Wang, 2015).
George, K. (2019). The tech industry has a serious sustainability problem. Retrieved 6 October 2019, from https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/tech/the-tech-industry-has-a-serious-sustainability-problem/
Wang, U. (2015). Top five sustainable technology trends of 2015. Retrieved 6 October 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/dec/31/top-5-sustainable-technology-trends-of-2015
Hi Karlijn,
Nice post, I feel like this is a topic that should be raised more often. Technology is often regarded as the ultimate solution to fight climate and pollution-related problems but at the same time a lot of people do not reflect upon what is used to build and run these technologies. When reading your post, electric cars popped into my mind. While electric cars produce no exhaustion fumes, the components of their batteries are not as environmentally friendly. Their lithium-ion batteries contain cobalt, a mineral linked to child labor, and nickel, which is toxic to extract. Moreover, these minerals are finite and limited, which will make it impossible to widespread the use of electric vehicles if we rely on it. I am by no means trying to undermine the role of technological progress when it comes to solving these kind of issues. In fact, I believe it has great potential. I just feel that we should all be more critical before wide-spreading and “hyping” a technology as the solution to a problem. As you mention, I hope there will be disruptive new technologies emerging soon that can be sustainably developed for real.