A green digitalized economy? Challenges and opportunities for sustainability

Digitalization is creating new patterns of production and consumption and bringing sweeping changes across the economy. The increasing use of information and com-munication technology (ICT) has stirred hopes that this will create new opportunities for economic development and lead to more environmentally friendly production methods. The social and environmental impacts of this digital transformation are only beginning to be understood, and little reliable data on its environmental effects exists. However, some initial trends are already discernible. It remains unclear whether the digital transformation of the economy can be reconciled with the goals of sustainable development. This will depend to a large degree on how the digital transformation is shaped at the national and international levels.