Ecological sustainability consists of stability, which is an ecosystem’s capability to return to its original state after a disturbance, and resilience, which is an ecosystem’s capability to return to ANY functional state after a disturbance. To sum it up, ecological sustainability is the preservation of an ecosystem’s biodiversity.
An example for a digital solution that improves ecological sustainability is AR remote assistance for B2B machine manufacturers. Through AR equipment, a service employee is able to guide a customer through the maintenance or simple repair of a machine without having to leave his desk. As a result, all ecological cost associated with travelling are set to zero and CO2 emissions, as well as the need for fuel are diminished.
Social sustainability has two components: The internal one is the management and maintenance of cultural diversity, gender equality and healthy practices for employees in general. In essence, the internal perspective is similar to Employer Branding as it, too, aims at creating and cultivating a “good place to work”. Furthermore, social sustainability has an external component. It is concerned with ensuring e.g. that exploitation of human or natural resources is prevented, or that no trade is conducted with dictators.
Again, digital products can have a lasting impact on a company’s social sustainability. The COVID-19 pandemic forced companies to send their employees to the home office in order to slow down the spread of the infectious virus. Simultaneously, citizens were urged to limit all social contacts to the bare minimum. As a result, feelings of isolation and disconnection set in for many employees.
To address the issues related to working from the home office, companies quickly moved to digital solutions such as videoconferencing or collaborative online tools that would allow employees to continue interacting and cooperating with each other almost as if they were located in the same room. For example, videoconferencing tools allow the transmission of body signals and language that would otherwise get lost via the phone or emails and thus create deeper, more personal communication. As a result, employees feel more included, less alone, and more comfortable in their team.
An example that shows how a company’s actions can also have a large effect on external social sustainability is American jewellery house Tiffany & Co. started the Diamond Source Initiative project, which would allow them to trace and identify all of their diamonds via blockchain technology. This has a lasting impact on the trade of so called “blood diamonds”, or unethically sourced diamonds.
Although not expressively addressed by the Digital Value Canvas, for the purpose of completeness we shall also briefly elaborate on economic sustainability. In this context, it is the practice of ensuring long-term economic growth, while simultaneously minimizing the impact of said growth on social or environmental sustainability. Essentially, it is a matter of resource efficiency, i.e. utilizing the available resources in a way that maximizes the achieved output while preventing the overexploitation of finite resources at the same time.
A good example here would be Microsoft’s Azure for the energy industry. With an arsenal of technologies such as digital twin, AI, and cloud computing, Azure transformed the energy sector to increase its economic sustainability. In Norway, for example, Azure and Hafslund Nett (Hafslund), a major power grid operator, developed the basis for a nation-wide rollout of smart metering, which effectively provides real-time information about the country’s power consumption, which in turn allows Hafslund Nett to produce only the energy that is needed.