Sustainable development

Recycling technology for ICT equipment must meet the same high standards as those applied today for their production. In addition, sustainability is not only an objective for the preservation of natural resources but is also a challenge for knowledge and communication societies in securing the availability of knowledge by keeping the access channels open, in order to provide people today and in the future with a secure basis for action.

Sustainable societies therefore require unhindered and inclusive use of knowledge and information.

As a consequence information and communication societies (ICS) are only sustainable:

• Ø when access to knowledge and information provides all peoples of the world with the opportunity for self-determined development in their private, professional and public lives;
• Ø when communities are empowered to develop their own productive forces and control the modes of production within ICS, in particular to participate in their development and sustenance through fully democratic processes that allow them to share control of decision making with respect to economic, cultural, environmental, and other issues concerning ICT-based projects;
• Ø when communities have the ability to participate directly in the development and maintenance of ICT-based solutions to their own problems;
• Ø when human rights, the protection of human dignity and the right to personal development are respected and guaranteed in the work environment; and
• Ø when development in the North is no longer carried out at the expense of the South, when the potential of men is no longer realised at the expense of women and when the disabled are fully included in the world of ICT and its services.

last update 27 Nov. 2003

Contact: www_wsis@web.ethz.ch

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URL: http://www.wsis.ethz.ch/