Karlijn van den Berg

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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 Screenshot 2019-10-06 at 17.20.15

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From TechTrust’s survey in 2017, it became evident that only 42% of the charities defined a digital strategy – which is a plan to optimize existing processes with the use of data assets and digital technologies. What’s more, charities with a digital strategy usually have more positive future forecasts for their businesses, increased productivity, higher donations and efficiency improvements as opposed to charities without a digital strategy (Green, 2018). So, it becomes clear that technology plays an important role in the charity sector. But in which ways?

One way is via contactless payment technology. As our society becomes uses increasingly less cash, cashless donation points are an effective way to increase donations (Gilliland, 2019). One research from YouGov in January 2017 found that charities could be missing out on more than £80 million yearly donations when they only accept cash (FinTechFuture, 2017).

Apps are another tech area that benefits charities. They are used to improve processes within charities, e.g. make administrative tasks and support more efficient (Gilliland, 2019). Apps can also make donating more fun for donors. One example of a company that created an app to engage contributors more is Save the Children. They created the Earthquake Response app, which provides donators a view into the experience of the disaster response. This way, awareness of disasters is raised (Nord, 2017). Such apps show that technology is not replacing the human touch that is crucial for charities, but that they are a tool to improve the human touch (Gilliland, 2019).

Another technology impacting charities is blockchain – a decentralized electronic database of transactions, where data is stored across a peer-to-peer network. As blockchain creates transparency, contributors can track their payments and observe that their money is actually used for a good cause (Gilliland, 2019).

These are only a small number of current technologies that positively affect the charity sector. As the majority of the surveyed companies said they lag behind in their digital strategy, they are encouraged to optimally make use of the current technologies to increase their donations.

References

FinTechFutures (2017). Payments: contactless charitable cases. [online] FinTech Futures. Available at: https://www.fintechfutures.com/2017/12/payments-contactless-charitable-cases/ [Accessed 15 Sep. 2019].

Gilliland, N. (2019). How digital technology is impacting the charity sector – Econsultancy. [online] Econsultancy. Available at: https://econsultancy.com/digital-technology-impacting-charity-sector/ [Accessed 15 Sep. 2019].

Green, C. (2018). No charity left behind: the need for a digital third sector. [ebook] Canterbury: TechTrust. Available at: https://charitydigital.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/No-charity-left-behind-the-need-for-a-digital-third-sector.pdf [Accessed 15 Sep. 2019].

Nord, D. (2017). HuffPost is now a part of Oath. [online] Huffpost.com. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/10-charity-apps-that-support-charity_b_3188736?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADnIT1kkla2L5WdVhJzH-nqMP62wh0hmR4b9nXuFZqfnoRvPlKrLN77X2YNcHvBv4W8hPsU0xgbnTM09-e28Z3q7b3O5U4BO1c5AxuRa_I8LcaP1l8MJtYxuucqBdFC7K10Tv6DfEq-hgOKQ0gR4CgZqFJe5wa6X4VEKYbAkTdlW [Accessed 15 Sep. 2019].

Do charities need a digital strategy?

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