Considering sustainability through ethical approaches and their practical application

Proliferation in the growth and use of new technologies is making radical changes to our society and generating a major change in human behaviour. Accelerated production of e-technologies is creating not only new exciting advances but also a darker side where there are major issues of sustainability. Owing to the exponential growth in the development of new e-technologies and mobile devices, the demand for new upgrades has created a bottomless cavern for excessive waste. This paper attempts to raise awareness of sustainability issues and considerations that these advancing technologies present. The paper begins with a broad survey of the current relationship between technological progress and sustainability. This is followed by a review of the history of the relationships between ethics and technological development, showing how the ethical focus has changed over time and in response to major societal concerns, sustainability being one of the major twenty-first century concerns. The paper then examines issues of sustainability in more detail, and poses the question of how the individual concerned with producing systems and artefacts that have their basis in electronic and computational technology may engage with these issues. The important question of the blurring of boundaries is also raised, since this affects cultural attitudes to ethical imperatives. Following a review of the ways in which ethical concerns may be perceived as affecting the individuals involved, the Culturally negotiated ethical triangle is presented as what is hoped will be a useful tool for all those concerned with negotiated approaches to issues of sustainability.