Digital technologies are profoundly influencing all economic sectors and have potential to contribute towards a sustainable society. At the same time, the production, use and waste management of these technologies, which lie at the core of the economic sector of information and communication technology (ICT), are causing environmental impacts. Previous studies have applied life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology and life cycle thinking to assess current and future direct energy use and climate impact of the global ICT sector. These studies frequently arrive at contradictory results regarding future impacts. Calculation approaches applied differ significantly, the consideration of key aspects varies, fast-growing digital technologies are seldom included in future scenarios and uncertainty analyses are typically limited. The aim of this study is to develop guidelines for assessments of the current and future direct energy use and climate impact of the global ICT sector based on LCA methodology and life cycle thinking. The guidelines have been developed based on literature reviews, the authors’ aggregated and broad expertise in this topic and in workshops. Key aspects in influencing the current and future direct energy use and climate impact of the global ICT sector, covering its three subdomains of end-user devices, networks and data centres as well as all life cycle stages, are identified. These include, for example, the number of end-user devices, number of subscriptions and the annual electricity use of networks and data centres. The guidelines address challenges for practitioners and can contribute towards more transparent and coherent future studies.

The multiple unfolding crises that threaten life on Earth keep many of us awake at night and leave us at a loss about how to meaningfully respond. Much of humanity's efforts to address the crises are ultimately aimed at upholding the current unsustainable paradigm of infinite growth and exploitation of both natural resources and humans. In this paper, we offer the Two Loops model of change as a framework for understanding the interrelated crises of our times - the meta-crisis - to help us find clues for personal agency and also hope. Notably, Two Loops asks us to face the need for hospicing and grieving what is dying, reorienting computing to work to what comes after and what must be protected and saved. We work through the model's various spaces for agency, i.e. innovating, naming, connecting, nurturing, illuminating in the emergent System; and stewarding, hospicing, composting and transitioning in the dying dominant System. We suggest examples and clues as to where computing and HCI professionals' agency might lie in and between the two Systems in terms of skills, tools, practices and projects. Moving forward, we welcome a deeper, large-scale collaborative mapping of the possible contributions of our profession, to include all the different specialisms of our field in the picture of how we can be of service to liveable futures.

This paper describes a participatory pastcasting workshop designed using action-oriented design research methods in close collaboration with practitioners from Omställningsnätverket (the Swedish Transition Network) as co-researchers. The paper deepens the theoretical understanding of how to implement pastcasting, a novel addition to futures studies methodologies aimed at societal transformation. We outline the process of designing the workshop format and insights from running the workshop in two different locations in Sweden. We propose that exploring complex problems such as climate change as if they have already been solved in an alternative, more desirable present and then imagining what we did to address them in the recent past is liberating and generative of ideas for action. We argue that this methodology is a powerful addition to other futuring techniques as it concretises urgently needed societal transformations and brings them closer to people and their communities.

Household consumption accounts for around 60% of Sweden’s consumption-based climate emissions. Carbon footprint calculators have been proposed as potentially effective tools for making people aware of their climate footprint, but their success in supporting habit change has been limited. One reason may be the calculators’ inability to point to concrete action, failing to give users the agency to change their routines. In this article, we shift the focus from the carbon calculator to its social context, supported by a workplace campaign. How can a workplace campaign including a footprint calculator raise awareness about the climate impacts of everyday habits and motivate lifestyle changes? We draw upon knowledge of social psychology, emphasizing the social context as a platform for change. We studied campaigns at two workplaces–how they affected employees’ pro-environmental habits and factors strengthening and weakening their motivation. We show that workplace campaigns can help employees reduce their carbon footprint through changes in everyday habits. Companies can play an essential role in supporting such processes. On the one hand, participants in the campaigns were motivated by the companies’ engagement in sustainable lifestyles and their support for employees’ efforts to form more sustainable everyday habits. Social aspects of the campaign, such as team spirit and the presence of a strong leader, also played key roles. On the other hand, participants’ motivation was weakened because the campaign did not adequately target their current practices and foster a sense of a community. Their motivation was also undermined by problems using the footprint calculator.

Today there is a wealth of data available detailing the climate impact of our actions, including the CO2 emissions from academic flying. Despite this, such data is hard to engage with in the abstract, leading to little practical action. In this paper, we investigate how to support processes of collectively working through and making sense of environmental data about academic flying through data physicalisation. Drawing on the results from a series of workshops with stakeholders at our own university, in which we have designed and deployed a data physicalisation of flight data, we describe this process and discuss lessons learned with a focus on material, engagement with data and ethics.

Behavioural change is necessary in order to reach a sustainable society. Sometimes this will translate into doing less and it is likely that we need to stop some things entirely. We lay out the multiple challenges of making the act of abstaining count. The issue is partly philosophical - we ask ourselves how to intellectually and semantically frame abstaining; partly practical – how can we count abstaining? It concerns a broader understanding of modernity and interrogates the ideas of progress and growth, technological change, and innovation. Abstaining will also be a moving target as expectations and demands shift over time.

With each IPCC report, the science basis around climate change increases extensively in terms of scope, depth, and complexity. In converting this knowledge into societal climate action, research organisations face the challenge of reforming the ways they structure themselves, generate solutions, and communicate scientific findings to stakeholders. Here we present a mission-driven approach to guide those efforts.

The environmental impact of computing is significant, distributed, and extensive. In this paper, we examine the extent to which this implies that computing, as an industry and as specific technologies, infrastructures, and practices, can be considered as ecocide. Ecocide is a proposed crime of environmental damage. A significant movement is underway to register ecocide as the fifth law of the International Criminal Court. We examine the definition of ecocide proposed and evaluate computing across the criteria established. Our intention with this paper is not to provide definitive proof, one way or the other, but to raise the question of the extent to which we can consider, be accountable for, and take responsibility for the environmental harm we create as designers of computing technologies. We argue that the establishment of ecocide as an international crime will have significant effects for computing in how we assume and consume natural resources in the advancement of computing, and that a paradigm shift is needed to recognise and account for nature as an equal participant in computing’s future and development.

Surveys of urban history from ancient times to the present reveal a continuum of collective responses to pandemics ranging from quarantine facilities and monitoring the spread of disease to building new wastewater networks. The contemporary COVID-19 pandemic includes new digital tools and techniques that supplement (and sometimes replace) the existing analogue responses, while raising new ethical issues with respect to privacy. A typology of pandemic responses in cities is created, based on human–building interaction (HBI) principles. This typology can be used to compare and contrast analogue and digital responses relating to distancing, monitoring and sanitising. It provides a summary of a wide range of individual and collective implications of pandemics and demonstrates the indelible connections between pandemics and the built environment. In addition, the typology provides a tool to interpret some of the opportunities and drawbacks of digitalising cities. PRACTICE RELEVANCE The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the enduring co-evolution of cities and disease through history. This study aims to inform future pandemic preparedness by providing a framework for designers, managers and users of public spaces to evaluate the multiple implications of emerging technologies that are integrated within the urban fabric. While the rapid rise of digitalisation to advance urban health agendas continues to raise new questions relating to individual and civic freedoms, HBI qualitatively provides a lens through which to examine the overlapping spatial, ethical, and temporal consequences for humans and the built environment. Urban planning researchers and designers can use HBI principles to humanise the sustainable smart city.

ICT4S as an umbrella concept encompasses several disciplines and areas related to sustainability and ICT, and it can be difficult for an educator to have an overview of all areas and research fronts where interesting, engaging and transformative research is taking place. We provide such a space.