Social sustainability and ICT

Guest Lecturer: Elisabeth Ekener, PhD, KTH/School of Architecture and the Built Environment

Content: This lecture will provide you with a brief introduction to the concept of social sustainability and the engineer’s role in (socially) sustainable technological development. The first part of the lecture discusses the idea of a ‘safe and just space for humanity’ as presented by Raworth (2012). In the second part of the lecture, tools for including social sustainability aspects into engineering practice, such as social life-cycle assessment, are introduced using examples from ICT.

About: The research of Elisabeth Ekener is focusing in the social dimension of sustainable development. She was involved in the international  process of developing the standard ISO 26000 Social responsibility. She has a PhD in Social Life Cycle Assessment and has conducted several case studies using this methodology. At present she works in a number of projects addressing social impacts in areas such as the social aspect of future energy systems in Europe, social impacts in the use phase of mobile phones and sustainability impacts of vehicle fuels.

Literature:

Raworth, K. 2012. A safe and just space for humanity: Can we live within the doughnut? Oxfam Dicsussion Papers. Oxfam, UK.

Chhipi-Shresth, G.K., Hewage, K., and Sadiq, R. 2015. ‘Socializing’ sustainability: a critical review on current development status of social life cycle impact assessment method. Clean Techn Environ Policy, 17:579-596