Topical Area II:
Sustainable Development and the Information Society

Dematerialization, Immaterialization, and Information Society Technologies
Assessment of the substitution, optimization and induction potential of Information Society Technologies (IST) with regard to physical processes (i.e. material and energy transformation); comparison of conventional ("real") and dematerialized ("virtual") products and services with regard to sustainability.

Environmental and Social Impacts of the Digital Revolution/New Media
New life styles and their impacts; e-government and citizien participation; computer-supported knowledge management; privacy issues and IST

Technology Assessment (TA) for Information Society Technologies
Methods, tools and applications to assess the impacts of IST with regard to ecological, economic or social issues.

Computer-supported Sustainability Impact Assessment
Methods and tools for sustainability impact assessment (as an extension of environmental impact assessment).

Sustainability Management; Sustainability Reporting; Triple Bottom Line Approach
Integrating environmental, economic and social data in Enterprise Reource Planninng (ERP) systems; software-support for corporate sustainability reporting.

Security Risks in the Information Society
Security risks for organizations introduced by IST; problems of software quality and unmastered complexity in the information society.

Conflict Resolution in the Information Society
Computer-supported mediation; support of consensual processes based on game theory; modelling global conflict potentials and solution strategies.

The Rebound Effect in the New Economy
New forms of the rebound effect (which was originally observed in the energy sector); empirical sutdies and explanatory models of the rebound effect.

The Global Digital Divide and its National Counterparts
Unequal distribution of access to IST; education issues in the information society; technical standards and market dominance; issues of e-colonisation.

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