Digital technologies are often hailed as enabling tools for sustainable transformations. While digital technologies have great potential, they are not neutral. In project SustainDiT we want to investigate the links between digital transformations and sustainable transformations and how these links affect sustainability. What makes SustainDiT unique is our socio-technical approach and our focus on the inherent affordances of digital technologies. SustainDiT is currently focusing on three types of digital technologies (platforms, algorithms and sensors) applied to healthcare, social services and built environments.

Digital technologies can help save energy, connect people globally, inform global decisions through big data, and much more. While digital technologies have great potential, they are not neutral. In fact, the digital transformation of our societies might in many cases act as roadblock for sustainable transformations. Examples of such roadblocks are abundant in recent research, and are given diverse names such as digital divide, digital inequality, algorithmic injustice, surveillance capitalism, algorithmic bias, digital Taylorism, platform capitalism etc.

Digital transformation as a core phenomenon is seldom studied in the context of sustainability. This is the goal of our project SustainDiT on sustainable digital transformation. In SustainDiT we have chosen three areas of technological development that illustrate systemic conflicts in sustainable digital transformations:

1. Digital platforms: Create efficiency using centralized, standardized, and scalable transaction systems. Reduce local democracy, power-sharing, and transparency.
2. Algorithmic governance: Create efficiency by automating processes and decisions. Reduce transparency and power-sharing. Potentially increase injustice.
3. Internet of things: Create innovative services through the collection of big data. Reduce privacy and increase surveillance.

Each of these technological developments is then investigated in one of the three empirical application domains (healthcare, social services, and built environments) we research on. The main objective of SustainDiT is to create new actionable knowledge about sustainable digital transformation within the three technological developments above.

SustainDiT is funded by NTNU Sustainability.

The project started in 2022 and is planned to finish by 2026. Here is a rough overview of what will happen in the project during the coming years:

• 2023: Onboarding of PhD students, courses, initial training.
• 2024: Case studies are selected and collaboration started. Basic theoretical work is done.
• 2025: First empirical publications from case studies are published.
• 2026: Theoretical frameworks are developed and high-level journal papers are under publication.

Events:

• Adresseavisen and Litteraturhuset arranged a panel discussion about digital medias influence on peoples every day life on October 24 2023 in Trondheim;  Avlogga: Lykkeligere uten skjerm? [Logged off. Happier without a screen?]. Professor Steinar Krokstad from our project participated in the conversation based on public health trends showed with data from the HUNT Study. Gemini.no have earlier published an article on the development.
• Trøndelag County Council arranged the regional Trøndelag Culture and Public Health Conference on 5-7 October 2023. In a key note lecture titled "Public health developments - what drives the changes the HUNT figures show?" Steinar Krokstad from our project highlighted the role of commercial actors on public health development, and the increasing influence by big technology companies on younger generations mental health and wellbeing.
• On September 28-30 Karen Walseth Hara and Maryam Hagshenas from our project participated in the 24th EUMASS congress in the European Parliament. Maryam presented from her case study for SustainDiT. Karen had a presentation on teaching in Insurance medicine, knowledge emerging form our SustainDiT project feeds into the education of our students on the topic of social sustainability. 
• On September 6, 2023, we organized a seminar in the technical university of Vienna as part of their PhD summer school on sustainable futures. You can find more about this seminar in this blog post.
• The Norwegian Government has set up a committee to provide a better knowledge base on how children's and young people's use of screens in kindergarten, school and leisure time affects health, quality of life, learning and upbringing; Skjermbrukutvalget. The committee had its first meeting om June 20. 2023. Professor Steinar Krokstad from our project is represented in the committee. Input for policy development and advice on measures will be provided from the committee.
• On June 5, 2023, organized a workshop during the ECSCW 2023 conference in Trondheim. The workshop's topic was digital public encounters. During the workshop we discussed public encounters between citizens and governments are being digitalized, and the long-term consequences of such digitalization.
• On November 1, 2022 we organized a seminar on sustainable digital health and social care services. More information about the seminar and the presentations can be downloaded from this page.

Pupular science dissemination:

• On April 2024: Steinar Krokstad is interviewed in this article in Forskning.no about youth use of social media.
  • see also this article from the journal Psykologi.
• On April 24: Klassekampen editor op-ed mentions Steinar's comments on social media use among youth.
  • see also this article in newspaper Varden.
• On August 26, 2023,  we published a feature article (Kronikk) in Adresseavisen; De vet alt om oss, men holder det skjult [They know all about us but keep it hidden from us]. Since the introduction of social media into society, the mental health of young people, students and young people have deteriorated significantly. Parents who want to provide good upbringing conditions for their children are powerless. Many demand that the politicians must take action, including setting age limits, ban smartphones in schools and stop the misuse of peoples personal data. 
• On December 5, 2022, we published a feature article (Kronikk) in the local newspaper Adresseavisen. The article is about participation of employees in digitalization processes, and the challenges faced by these employees. You can find out more in this blog post.

Other engagements:

• Steinar Krokstad fra ISM sitter i det regjeringsoppnevnte Skjermbrukutvalget, og deltar i den offentlige debatten om bærekraftig digitalisering.
  • Steinar hold osgå innlegg på Innspelsmøte om aldersgrense på sosiale medium.

Scientific publications:

• Schmidt, M., & Farshchian, B. (2024). The impact of digitalization on frontline employees’ knowledge work – a literature review.
• Crivellari, I., Grøder, C. H., Parmiggiani, E., Moltubakk, S. T., & Bertheussen, L. E. (2024, January 3). Socially Sustainable Digital Transformation in the Public Sector: A Systematic Literature Review. Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. HICS.
• Grøder, C., & Parmiggiani, E. (2023). Delegating Agency in the Public Sector: A Case Study on Current Human-Technology Practices and Visions for AI. Selected Papers of the IRIS, 2023(14), Article 8.
• Ilaria Crivellari, Johanne Svanes Oskarsen, Charlotte Husom Grøder. Unveiling the Invisible: Caseworkers’ Data Work in a Public Welfare Organization (2024). EGOV 2024.
• Farshchian, Babak A.: Platforms and precarity of organizational work. A short paper to be presented at the CNoW workshop 2023 "Changing nature of work" on December 12. 
• Farshchian, Babak A., and Marius Mikalsen. “Using a Service Lens to Better Understand Practices –and Vice Versa.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), August 19, 2023.
• Sæther, Runar, and Babak A. Farshchian. “The Workers Strike Back- A Literature Survey of Digital Circumvention Tools Used by Online Gig Workers.” In Proceedings of 21th European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. Trondheim, Norway: European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (EUSSET), 2023.

If you are a student and find SustainDiT interesting please contact us. We have available master theses projects!

• NFR project AI4Users.
• Project PlatVel funded by Universitetskommune.
• SustainDiT is part of NTNU's Center for Sustainable ICT (CECICT).
• SustainDiT members are involved in the GoForIT researcher network.
• The HUNT Study.
• SustainDiT is part of NTNU Sustainability.
• SustainDiT collaborates with the project STUNTH.
• SustainDiT members collaborate with EUMASS (European Union of Medicine in Assurance and Social Security) where we are involved in organizing EUMASS meetings, developing literature reviews, and presenting results from the project.

• On November 30, 2023 we will co-organize a seminar on creativity and infrastructuring in collaboration with Technical University of Vienna.
• On November 24, 2023 we will organize our second seminar on sustainable digital transformations. You can find out more in the seminar's web page.
• The deadline for applying to our last PhD position was on September 22, 2023.
• On September 6, 2023, we organized a seminar in the technical university of Vienna as part of their PhD summer school on sustainable futures. You can find more about this seminar in this blog post. 
• On January 9, 2023 we had a whole-day project-internal seminar where members presented their research and project deliverables were discussed.
• On November 1, 2022 we organized a seminar on sustainable digital health and social care services. More information about the seminar and the presentations can be downloaded from this page.
• You can follow our project on social media by following the hashtag #sustainDiT