Sustainability-enabled assessment of digital technologies

Companies now face two challenges in order to remain innovative and competitive. The first is to digitally transform their production, products and services. Second is to address sustainability topics to reduce their global footprint. However, introducing new digital technologies may contradict company’s sustainability goals, for example, introducing a digital technology improves assembly lines, but increases energy consumption. This paper introduces a sustainability-enabled assessment framework for digital technologies (SAFT) supporting companies to choose the best digital technology for them. The SAFT framework assesses digital technologies in terms of sustainability factors as well as crucial aspects such as technology potential, and the fit to the company. The paper concludes with a case study in which the SAFT framework is applied to a company in the construction industry.