Develop Digital Competencies

Many of the key actors with the ability to influence the trajectory of digitalization and sustainability lack a number of essential digital competencies and skills needed to catalyse this shift. On the one hand, public sector and policy makers need to understand both the environmental opportunities and risks from digital transformation. They must build up their own digital capacities to understand what they want to regulate, enable and incentivize.

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On the other hand, entrepreneurs, computer scientists as well as hardware and software engineers also need to understand how their products and services generate different sustainability incentives and impacts in the real world in order to take these into account in the design process. They must enhance their understanding of today’s sustainability challenges, especially on decarbonization, dematerialization, detoxification and economic circularity. This must be centered on a renewed humanism mindset that recognizes empathy, ethics and traditional indigenous knowledge. Academic curricula, vocational training, professional associations all need upskilling to reflect digital sustainability needs and outcomes. Moreover, to overcome the digital divide, digital and sustainability literacy has to be an integrated effort.