Background/Motivation

Sustainability and digitalization are key transformation drivers for city administrations. Although these two drivers individually have been receiving considerable attention in practice and science, their interaction remains underexplored. Often, the use of digital technologies appears to support sustainability goals only initially, but ecological, social and economic effects can diminish or even cancel out the positive contribution (rebound effects).

However, such undesirable effects have remained largely unnoticed as they materialise only at a distance in time and space (e.g. at the other end of the supply chain for products such as microchips, or cloud storage services located elsewhere).

There is so far little knowledge with respect to the extent to which this tension between digitalisation and sustainability plays a role in municipal decisions on the deployment of digital technologies.

It is also largely unclear how (indirect negative consequences of such technologies can be systematically assessed and addressed so that municipal administrations can comprehensively fulfil their own sustainability aspirations.

The complexity and fragmentation of the organisational landscapes of large cities adds to this, where similar problems are often tackled differently by municipal actors in one and the same city. This is precisely the point of departure for the proposed exploratory project, in which WU Vienna and UIV Urban Innovation Vienna GmbH (as consortium partners) are involved.

Contents and goals

The project aims to contribute to sustainable digitalisation of cities. lt aims to explore innovative ways of using digital technologies to realise sustainability aspirations, but also to comprehensively assess the technologies themselves against these aspirations.

To this end, the project pursues four sub-goals:

1. to create an overview of the role(s) of digital technologies in the realisation of sustainability concerns as perceived by relevant decision makers;
2. to "map" negative feedback effects of such technologies;
3. to systematise approaches to identify, reflect on and resolve tensions between the transformation drivers, sustainability and digitalisation; and
4. to formulate requirements for a systematic approach to the comprehensive establishment of digital sustainability in municipal administrations.

Methodical Approach

To achieve these objectives, interviews with municipal decision-makers from different administrative and service areas of the City of Vienna are planned. The project results will be widely disseminated, presented to the interview partners and interested representatives of the City of Vienna and jointly discussed with regard to their feasibility, and also academically re-used.

Expected Results

This exploratory project is intended to clarify key preliminary questions before a follow-up project develops concrete strategies on how cities can shape digitalization processes sustainably and anchor corresponding sustainability requirements institutionally.

Project management

WU Vienna

Project or cooperation partners

UIV Urban Innovation Vienna GmbH

WU Vienna
Research Institute for Urban Management and Governance
Welthandelsplatz 1
A-1020 Vienna
Tel.: +43 (1) 31336 4437
E-mail: stephan.leixnering@wu.ac.at
E-mail: tobias.polzer@wu.ac.at
Web: www.wu.ac.at/urban