Call for Papers
Towards Sustainable Digital Futures: a two day symposium
14th & 15th May 2025, University of Sheffield, UK
Over the past decades, digitalization and sustainability have emerged as two of the most significant global trends, yet they have largely developed independently. Digitalization is proposed as a solution to address global sustainability challenges such as climate change, environmental pollution, and biodiversity loss (United Nations 2018; Dwivedi et al. 2022). Nevertheless, technologies such as AI are partial and deceptive solutions to the planetary crises if their sustainability is not addressed.
Alarming figures from scientific research have highlighted the detrimental environmental effects of digitalization and datafication. The environmental impacts of digitalization are significant and growing, with rising electricity consumption, water usage, and emissions from devices, networks, and data centers (Gelenbe, 2023; Lange et al., 2023; Li et al., 2023). Moreover, the extraction of critical minerals for digital devices as well as planned obsolescence and poor recycling cause severe ecological harm, particularly in the Global South (Lange et al., 2023).
Although societies want digital technologies to serve the social good, there has been far more focus on environmental harms of digital technologies than sustainable alternatives. In this symposium, we ask what a sustainable digital society looks like and how we get there. What kind of research is needed to make the digital future more sustainable?
The interdisciplinary symposium will include paper presentations, a workshop, and keynote talk. We welcome different types of presentations: theoretical, empirical, and methodological research papers, “work-in-progress”, practice-based responses, and “wildcards” (suggest your own presentation type).
Proposals may respond to, but are not limited by, the following themes:
* Conceptual frameworks and vocabularies for studying good digital sustainability
* Rethinking digital efficiency from a planetary perspective
* The ethics of resource-intensive technologies (e.g. AI)
* Alternative visions of sustainable digital society
* Sustainable practices in digital industries and digital everyday life
* Policy innovations and interventions for addressing digital unsustainability
* Innovative and/or speculative methods for digital sustainability research
* Art-science collaboration, design prototypes, or games on digital sustainability
Please submit your proposal (200-250 words) with a brief bio via email to minna.vigren@lut.fi by 7th February 2025. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 17th February.
Details:
When: 14-15 May 2025
Where: The Edge, 34 Endcliffe Crescent, Sheffield. S10 3ED (University of Sheffield campus).
Participation fee: £120, or £90 for PhD students.The fee covers symposium attendance, refreshments, lunches and an evening meal on the first day. Travel and accommodation are not covered.
For questions and more information, please contact minna.vigren@lut.fi.
The symposium is a collaboration between the ESRC Digital Good Network and the Imagining Sustainable Digital Futures project (Research Council of Finland, 2022-2025).
Organizing committee: Minna Vigren, Dorothea Kleine, Preeti Raghunath, and Thomas Wright
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Minna Vigren
Assistant Professor
Communication Sciences (room 4652)
LUT University, Finland
https://www.minnavigren.net
Project
Imagining Sustainable Digital Futures (Research Council of Finland, 2022–2025)
https://www.minnavigren.net/imagining-sustainable-digital-futures
Recent publications
Vigren, M. & Ketonen-Oksi, S. (2024). Kuvittelu transformatiivisia tulevaisuuksia rakentamassa.Futura 2/2024.
Ketonen-Oksi, S. & Vigren, M. (2024). Methods to imagine transformative futures. An integrative literature review. Futures 157, article number 103341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2024.103341
Vigren, M. (2024). Mediakasvatus ekokriisin aikakaudella: Eko-digitaalisen toimijuuden suuntaviivat. Teoksessa E. Airola ym. (toim.) Mediakasvatus hyvinvoinnin ja osallisuuden tukena. https://medialukutaitosuomessa.fi/mediakasvatus2024.pdf
Vigren, M. (2024). Imagining alternative mediated futures: Critical speculation as a method. In SAGE Research Methods: Diversifying and Decolonising Research. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529692563
Ylipulli, J. & Vigren, M. (2023). From skilled users to critical citizens? Imagining and future-making as part of digital citizenship. In D. Radovanović (ed.) Digital Literacy and Inclusion: Stories, Platforms, Communities (pp.15–31). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30808-6_2
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