The WBGU’s normative compass in the Digital Age 2.2
term. This also means that future is not singular, but that many different futures are conceivable. Thus, the discussion about shaping the future comprises both plausible and possible as well as desirable futures. In order to make necessary or structurally forced transformation processes as democratic and conflict-free as possible, it is therefore important to be aware of this selective effect of paradigms and assumptions about the world. Looked at positively, it could be said that a society’s ability to reflect and its level of education directly influence its transformability and future viability.
2.2 The WBGU’s normative compass in the Digital Age In 2016, the WBGU presented a normative compass (WBGU, 2016a) as an extended normative foundation for the Great Transformation towards Sustainability (WBGU, 2011; Section 2.1) – and spelled it out with a view to the transformative power of cities. In the present report, this compass is applied to the specific challenges of digitalization. The compass offers three basic orientations relating to the need to sustain the natural life-support systems, ensure inclusion and secure Eigenart.
2.2.1 Sustaining the natural life-support systems Sustaining the natural life-support systems is a core concept of the Great Transformation towards Sustainability and forms one of the three dimensions of the normative compass developed by the WBGU (2016a: 133). On the one hand, this dimension includes compliance with planetary guardrails, the breaching of which would have intolerable consequences either today or in the future. On the other hand, it involves avoiding local environmental problems whose impacts may result in complex interactions with global environmental changes (WBGU, 2016a). Digitalization exerts a fundamental influence on our current ways of life and doing business; it is thus also changing our options for sustaining the natural life-support systems and securing a long-term, solidarity-based quality of life on our planet. The various effects of digitalization on resource and energy consumption must be critically examined in terms of their impact on the geophysical, biological and atmospheric processes of the planet and of local environments (e.g. Sections. 5.2.1, 5.2.6). An extensive global assessment of these
effects is currently not possible, not least because of the difficult data situation (Köhler et al., 2018). However, their increasing relevance is not disputed – especially in view of the urgency of global and local ecological problems. This makes it necessary to actively shape digitalization in such a way that planetary guardrails and local environmental changes are taken into account. Two core questions result from this requirement. Firstly, to what extent can the opportunities offered by digitalization contribute towards sustaining the natural life-support systems? Secondly, how can the rapid processes of change associated with digitalization be prevented from exacerbating existing ecological crises? The sustainability dimension of the normative compass provides a fundamental orientation aid in answering these questions.
2.2.1.1 Planetary guardrails for global environmental change The concept of planetary guardrails developed by the WBGU since 1994 (Box 2.2.1-1) defines “quantitatively definable damage thresholds, whose transgression either today or in [the] future would have such intolerable consequences that even large-scale benefits in other areas could not compensate these” (WBGU, 2011: 32). The concept was taken up by Rockström et al. (2009) and Steffen et al. (2015b) as ‘planetary boundaries’ and, in part, even adopted as a political target (e.g. stopping global warming below the 2°C climate guardrail of the Paris Agreement). In its reports, the WBGU has developed planetary guardrails for specific areas, including climate (WBGU, 1995, 1997), poverty (WBGU, 2005) and the oceans (WBGU, 2006). The WBGU refers to the following six guardrails (Box 2.2.1‑1; WBGU, 2014b): >> Limit climate change to a maximum of 2°C, >> limit ocean acidification to 0.2 pH units, >> stop the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, >> stop land and soil degradation, >> limit hazards due to pollutants with a long life-span (e.g. mercury, plastics, fissionable material), >> stop the loss of phosphorus. The resource and energy effects of digitalization have a substantial impact on the possibility of complying with planetary guardrails. For example, there should be a critical examination of digitalization’s impact on the possibility of complying with the 2°C climate guardrail, on stopping land and soil degradation, and on establishing more sustainable consumption patterns. In addition to the hoped-for efficiency gains and possibilities for resource conservation through a circular economy or dematerialization, rebound effects should be taken into account, as should possible increases in the demand
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