Int. J. Innovation and Sustainable Development, Vol. 1, Nos.

1/2, 2005 85

Will the information society be sustainable?

Towards criteria and indicators for a sustainable
knowledge society

Joachim H. Spangenberg
Sustainable Europe Research Institute SERI,
Germany/Austria,

Université de Versailles,
Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France and

SERI Germany,
Industriestr. 15, D-32549 Bad Oeynhausen, Germany
Fax: +49-5731-981/96
E-mail: Joachim.Spangenberg@seri.de

Abstract: It is posited that the information society is not sustainable because

information alone is meaningless. Information requires a context to convert it
to knowledge – only the context adds the meaning. A knowledge society can
be sustainable, but this depends on the context: in a normative neoliberal
framework, the knowledge society represents a concept of individualisation
and of dismantling social structures. However, in the context of a (just as
normative) sustainability strategy, the meaning of ‘knowledge society’ is
different, focused on supporting active citizenship. For this reason, criteria for
a sustainable knowledge society cannot be restricted to access to information,
but must also cover the kind of information, the provision of content as much
as the infrastructure. Whereas a plethora of sustainability indicators has been
developed in the last decade, the work on integrated systems of indicators is
rather new, particularly for the sustainable knowledge society, so that no more
than first suggestions for indicators can be presented. A positive evaluation
demonstrates that the current trend towards a knowledge economy is not yet
sustainable.

Keywords: sustainability; knowledge society; context dependency; knowledge

indicators; ICT indicators.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Spangenberg, J.H. (2005)

‘Will the information society be sustainable? Towards criteria and indicators
for a sustainable knowledge society’, Int. J. Innovation and Sustainable
Development, Vol. 1, Nos. 1/2, pp.85–102.

Biographical notes: Joachim H. Spangenberg is the Vice President of the

Sustainable Europe Research Institute SERI, Vienna and Professor Invite at the
C3ED, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. He studied
Biology, Mathematics and Ecology and holds a PhD in Macroeconomics.
Before joining SERI he worked at the Wuppertal Institute and the Institute for
European Environmental Policy.

Copyright © 2005 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

86 J.H. Spangenberg

1 Introduction

Frankly spoken, and directly responding to the title question, the answer is ‘no’. While
the term, information society, emphasises the increasing importance of information for
modern societies, its focus is restricted to information as such. It is decontextualised, and
as sustainable development is heavily dependent on integration and context, it cannot be
sustainable.

2 The meaningless society

Information is raw or processed data, which can be interpreted by different people with
different economic and ideological interests, in different cultures and at different times.
However, what remains open is the question of what the information does, in fact, mean.
The answer is as ambiguous as our societies. As such, information has no meaning: it is
the social and cultural context, which gives information a meaning, transforming
information into knowledge and in the best of cases, into understanding. As meaning is
always generated by the context, stories and visions embedding data into a context can
have a meaning, but not the information/data as such (whenever we think they can, on
closer scrutiny we have added our own context, consciously or not, to the information)
(Funtowicz et al., 1998; Metzner, 1998). Taking the importance of meaning into account,
knowledge society would be a more appropriate term when talking about future
developments.
Whereas information can be standardised and globally transferred in less than no
time, this is not the case for knowledge, as the sociocultural context shaping the meaning
stays put. Meaning is valid in a specific compartment of society, defined less by
geographic than by cultural border lines. As a result, the same piece of information will
have a different meaning and generate a different knowledge for different people in the
same local community, provided it is not homogeneous in its culture (which is rarely the
case, as even different generations constitute different cultures in most societies). They
will – based on the best of their knowledge, their understanding and their legitimate
self-interest – give information widely varying meanings (most data processing is already
an interpretation) and/or ascribe to it differing levels of relevance (TV programs
reporting about the same event are an illustrative example of such differences). It has to
be emphasised, that this kind of diverging interpretation is not necessarily a sign of use or
abuse of influence, but rather a normal tendency in a pluralistic society and as such a
welcome sign of individual freedom of expression, a precondition for any open and
democratic society. Thus, a society which defines itself as an ‘information society’ is one
which neglects the context, the social mechanisms of providing meaning and as such is
not sustainable due to the lack of social cohesion. Consequently, as the neglect of social
context in the definition of an information society implies a lack of meaning, an
information society would be a truly meaningless society.

3 Normative versus positive knowledge society concepts

The development towards a knowledge society is partly driven by cultural change

(e.g. education levels, individualism or hedonism), partly by technology development
and partly by policy frameworks and economic dynamics, all of which interact.
 Will the information society be sustainable? 87

However, whereas the slogans used are often confusingly similar, the future knowledge
society will look rather different depending on the normative idea behind it – that is, if
developing according to a technology supply-focused or a demand-centred development
paradigm. Positive science, empirical research, can monitor the trends and allow
assessment of the impacts (which is important to track the success of policy strategies or
the lack thereof), but does not set a direction.
Regarding the normative framing of the knowledge society, two main concepts
can be distinguished. On the one hand, the (neo-) liberal attitude suggests that there
should be as little public intervention as possible in general, and into the development
and diffusion of new technologies in particular. Instead, the free market, plus free
expression of individual preferences, should be the institutions, which define future
trajectories for technology and its societal applications. The market, habits and individual
attitudes thus, define the direction of development and the necessary societal adjustments
and the mechanisms involved in this process. The state has to deliver the unavoidable
minimum of formal rules, which guarantee the undisturbed work of market and
communities; even for implementing market results and ensuring compliance with the
rules set, the ‘soft power’ of social control is preferred to the ‘hard power’ of government
interventions (Etzioni, 2004).
As opposed to this view, which has for long dominated the US political philosophy
(at least its applied segment), there has been a different perception in the European
cultural history: the market has been perceived as a powerful and indispensable
institution for optimisation, whereas the institutional framework (society, expressing its
preferences through the political mechanisms of the state) was considered
the main institution for defining orientation. Within this framework, the market
was expected to optimise processes and results, without taking over to define
the orientation (as the market is no conscious actor, the orientations it promotes would be
those of specific societal groups, anyway) (Spangenberg, 2004). The latter attitude is
reflected in the concept of sustainable development (little wonder, then, that it does
not provoke much positive resonance in the USA): society must define the desired
direction of development, and the market must deliver the demanded results efficiently.
This also refers to technology trajectories: while new developments cannot be predicted,
emphasis still can be laid on those kinds of efforts which intend to solve problems
defined by society (one key criterion for EU research funding) (Hinterberger
et al., 1996).

4 The normative neoliberal mission

Neoliberalism is an amalgam of neoclassical economics, anti-statism and conservative

ideas about the role of society and its members (in particular regarding gender issues,
family values and so on). Its battle cry is individual liberty, in particular, economic
liberalisation, but at the expense of economic and social rights. Its economic base is a
social: neoclassical economics ‘knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing’,
as a famous phrase claims. In this context, the price is data, measurable information but
the value is context-dependent meaning; this kind of economics fits well with the concept
of the information society. The widespread loss of capabilities, resulting in a loss of
freedom and caused by the loss of a social framework cannot show up in the political
balance as made up by neoliberals, however, because the whole ideology is focused on
the individual level, the utility maximising individuals so common in economic theory
88 J.H. Spangenberg

(and only there, not in real life). Thus, the other side of the coin, the burden of
responsibility even the weakest have to shoulder due to the dismantling of the welfare
state, is not taken into account when praising the additional liberties (such as reduced
taxes and less regulation).
In this context, the discussion about the knowledge society (or the information
society) has a number of purposes. It not only reflects the need to respond to de facto
developments, but also plays a role in designing the future society as it should be.
This includes the claim that knowledge is the key production factor of the future,
rendering labour and capital less important (and reducing the pressure on the
environment, if this is taken into account). This is taken to imply that the organisation of
labour is becoming less important as well, and that the responsibility of corporations for
the well-being, health and safety of their employees gives way to an individual
responsibility of the workers. Questioning power relations and ownership structures is no
longer considered an element of keeping a societal balance, but declared outdated in a
time where all this is not as relevant as the knowledge driving the economy. Another
downside of this attitude is reflected in the Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA) studies conducted on behalf of the OECD. It is not the self-realisation
of citizens supported by education and knowledge that is aimed for, but the economic
usefulness of the education offered.
Secondly, knowledge is an individual good (although intellectual property rights and
database developments try to transform it into a commodity). If, however, an individual
good determines economic success, the responsibility also becomes individualised (thus,
delivering another justification for the basic approach of neoliberal thinking). Public
authorities can offer education, but the individual is responsible for the use she/he makes
of that offer, and the results she/he obtains. Again, the social conditions play no role, and
collective security systems seem outdated when everybody is individually responsible for
success and failure.
This applies in particular to the labour market: all those with the appropriate
knowledge are believed to find work anytime (the definition of appropriateness is no
longer an issue of what an individual wants or can do best, nor on what the society needs,
but what the market, i.e. the business sector demands). Consequently, those who are
unemployed are responsible themselves; not the lack of job offers, but their lack of
employability is the cause of unemployment, according to this diagnosis.
The unemployed are obliged to search for appropriate training, for lifelong learning,
distance learning and suchlike, and society has to supply such training opportunities.
Once they have been offered, there is no further political responsibility for poverty and
unemployment – the responsibility rests with the individual.
This admittedly rather pointed description illustrates how the concept of the
knowledge society can be interpreted and used (in reality, there is never a purism as in
the description above, but in the ideology there is). In this context, the term, ‘information
society’, has been turned into a political weapon (similar to globalisation), rather
independent of the real-world developments and of the technologies developed and
marketed in particular. Developed under this paradigm and implemented in this context,
the results of technology development do not necessarily contribute to social progress,
but can be a disruptive force for social cohesion if such a policy framework is chosen.
To the contrary, the short-term orientation and the mixtures of commercial, military
and other preoccupations that motivate much of the science-based technology
development are most often controversial from a sustainability perspective based on
peace, justice and environmentally sound development. There is an undeniable risk of
 Will the information society be sustainable? 89

undersupplying public goods essential to sustainable development when too much

of the R&D talent is in private hands, and focused on delivering private value (Funtowicz
et al., 1999).
On the other hand, this is not an immanent characteristic of the technologies under
development (they might be specified differently if the demands were different), but a
result of the political and ideological frameworks at work. Thus, it seems desirable to
consider what are the social concepts of, and the technology demands arising from,
sustainable development as the main alternative to neoliberalism.

5 The normative sustainability vision

A sustainable knowledge society is an emancipative vision, based on the concept of

sustainable development and the assessment of what technology can contribute
to it, and how technology development and its social framing will influence the
functioning of a sustainable society. Obviously, this has far-reaching political
implications, in particular, as an alternative to neoliberalism, as it promotes a different
development trajectory. Consequently, research and technology development
for a sustainable society must have a clear idea of what sustainability is all
about – otherwise, without a substantial understanding of the subject, R&D would strive
to solve problems which nobody has asked to have solved, and which might not even
be problems in the sustainability context, while neglecting what society wishes to be
done (not a desirable stance for those paid from public funds). So what is sustainable
development?
The concept of sustainable development has emerged as a new paradigm during
the last decade. The definition most frequently referred to is the one provided by the
Brundtland Commission (officially the World Commission on Environment and
Development/WCED), characterising the concept as “development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p.43). This definition has been publicly
denounced as vague, imprecise and not operational. However, it has helped to put
sustainable development on the international policy agenda, making the concept
a vision so impossible to ignore that all kinds of interest groups are actively
battling for hegemony regarding its definition. No surprise then, that the
approaches suggested lack any common definition or operational principle: a common
definition of sustainable development needs to cover a broad range of interests,
which have no easily identifiable common denominator (Brand et al., 2002). So it
is not the vagueness of the WCED’s suggestion, but the conflicts of interest, which cause
the somewhat murky picture of what sustainability is all about. However, the
Commission’s definition already includes all key elements of sustainable development in
a nutshell.
First of all, sustainable development is not a positive but a normative concept, ethical
rather than analytical. It demands intergenerational justice to preserve the freedom of
choice for future generations, regardless of what their attitudes and preferences might be.
Secondly, it demands that the ‘needs of the present’ should be met, including all humans
on Earth, and not restricting needs to economic or basic ones. Thus, the Brundtland
Commission’s ethically based preanalytical vision or grand narrative is to provide to
everybody, everywhere and at any time, the opportunity to lead a dignified life in his or
her respective society. This is assumed to include a decent standard of living, social
90 J.H. Spangenberg

cohesion, freedom in an open and participative society and a healthy environment. The
three core imperatives derived from the problem areas are (Kopfmüller et al., 2001):
•% the environmental challenge: safeguarding the environment
•% the social challenge: realising justice between people, countries, gender, social
groups etc and reducing poverty
•% the institutional challenge: securing political participation.
An economic imperative is not mentioned. Instead, the economy is perceived as
Janus-headed, exhibiting deep ambiguities: it is a driving force behind most of the
problems, as well as a potential force for the better, contributing to the solution of
problems by creating enough wealth to solve them. Defining an economic imperative
such as maintaining an efficient and competitive economy is defining an indispensable
instrumental device serving the other imperatives, bound by the demands and conditions
they define (and not vice versa). As a result, four dimensions of sustainability emerge,
each permanently interacting and coevolving with each other (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 The prism of sustainability

In a similar fashion, science and technology are increasingly recognised as central both to
the origins of the sustainability challenges, and to the prospects of successfully dealing
with them.
Facing the ‘triple P sustainability challenge’ of poverty, pollution and participation
deficits means that science must strive to understand both the natural and the cultural
world and the way they interact to help find ways out of the sustainability crisis,
including providing suitable technology options, where appropriate, to help solve the
problems identified. This includes helping to map out the choices society faces and their
consequences, while not confusing means and ends, that is, being clear about the fact that
the choices we face are societal choices, not scientific or technical ones. Such choices
must respond to the challenges mentioned before. However, these challenges are neither
based on one core problem, nor independent, but interlinked. They have to be dealt with
simultaneously rather than consecutively due to the very urgency of the problems. Both
these facts give reason to approach sustainable development as a dynamic optimisation
process across the four dimensions (social, environmental, economic and institutional) of
sustainable development. Sustainability research thus has to contribute to:
 Will the information society be sustainable? 91

•% The integration of economic, social, environmental and institutional research

issues into a coherent framework of interacting complex systems, safeguarding
the essential interests of each dimension (not necessarily each discipline), as
far as possible in synergistic was to save scarce (intellectual just as financial)
resources.
•% The (re-)introduction of normative targets, in particular concerning distributional
justice in and between countries as highly relevant research topics into economics,
ecology, sociology, political sciences, trade, development and other research.
•% The extension of the research perspective to include distant regions and future
generations, monitoring and assessing the impacts of our more sophisticated,
far-reaching and enduring interventions into natural and social systems, in
particular since, in many cases, our understanding of the systems affected lags
behind our interventions (stop ‘throwing stones farther than we can look’ by
learning to look farther).

Sustainability science supports the quest for sustainable solutions in a complex world
characterised by factors, which may be generated locally, but with their impacts affecting
people across countries and generations. It cannot but be complexity science, dealing
with the interaction of multiple complex, dynamic, non-linear, self-organising systems
under conditions of irreducible uncertainty (Funtowicz et al., 1998, 1999) including and
building upon natural, technical, social and economic sciences; but it has to integrate and
reshape them to accommodate the needs of the sustainability paradigm. This poses
challenges for the analytical and methodological development work, including the
generation of appropriate tools for theoretical model generation and empirical analysis.
To do so, sustainability science has to explore new knowledge and effectively apply
existing knowledge, although in a reflexive manner (Beck et al., 1996; Giddens, 1996).
The effects to be taken into account will frequently emerge outside the individual
scientist’s realm and field of competence, making it urgent to overcome the old-
fashioned concept of scientific communication as one-way transmission of information
from experts to decision-makers and the public at large. Instead, the relevance of non-
scientific knowledge has to be accepted, as it is the knowledge about the context, which
defines the meaning of the scientific information (at least, outside the self-referential
ivory tower). As good science has always meant to get all relevant competencies on
board, the non-scientists are crucial for the quality of the process, as they represent
knowledge essential to the R&D success. Thus, the informal hierarchy of experts and
‘ordinary citizens’ is replaced by a user-producer-network of knowledge, in which the
roles of users and producers are permanently changing: every stakeholder becomes a
peer. In this sense, sustainability science must be post-normal (Funtowicz and Ravetz,
1993; Luks, 1996) public science, defining research questions relevant to society and
identifying solutions resonating with decision makers. The results must be reliable
enough for people to risk acting upon, and they must have immediate meaning to
decision makers in order to be applied in practice.
This reflects another aspect of the knowledge society: knowledge can no longer be
considered the property of the privileged few, but must become a common good, with
equal access to information and knowledge (this has implications not only for the
technological infrastructure, but also for education and training policies). A sustainable
society empowers all its members to make informed decisions, thus representing
an idea of the knowledge society going far beyond technical means of communication.
92 J.H. Spangenberg

To promote sustainability, there needs to be explicit identification of the direction of

development a society wishes to strive for, and a permanent social learning process in
pursuit of this goal, involving scientists and engineers as all other members of society. To
make best use of this continuous learning process, changes introduced by science and
technology as well as their effects should be as far as possible reversible rather than
establishing bifurcation points and initiating irreversible, path-dependant developments.
An error-friendly (von Weizsäcker, 1984) design and management of technical and social
systems might help to safeguard the self-determination of societies in times of rapid,
technology-driven change. Error-friendliness combines two characteristics: error
tolerance to accommodate human mistakes, and error-driven learning mechanisms as a
means of permanent improvement (von Weizsäcker, 1990).

6 Science, technology and society

If science and technology are to contribute effectively as a force for sustainable

development, clear criteria must be set and priorities developed within the scientific
community and its donor groups. Rather naturally, such criteria for the technological
basis of a sustainable knowledge society cannot be only technical ones, but must include
aspects of socio-economic quality as well. These are the outcomes of the sustainability
discourse, and from an analysis of the characteristics of the emerging knowledge society.
Using these criteria, the ‘demand pull’ regarding Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) and infrastructure needs of a knowledge-driven development can be
assessed. So far, however, the focus of the discussion has been on the ‘technology push’
of ICT development, falling short of assessing the demand side of a sustainable
knowledge society.
Core objectives of a sustainable society as defined so far (see Figure 2) include
greater social cohesion, more and better jobs (social dimension); economic
competitiveness and stability (economic dimension); delinking resource use and
economic development, safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystem health (environmental
dimension); and an open, participatory approach based on equity and non-discrimination,
justice and solidarity (institutional dimension). Such are the general characteristics of
sustainable societies, but they do not explicitly refer to knowledge issues because
knowledge will be one key feature, but certainly not the only feature, characterising a
future society. Consequently, we need to ask for the knowledge component of the
sustainable society, and only after that which demands for ICT as a tool, not an end in
itself, do result. For these considerations, issues such as distribution of knowledge, access
to information and the capability to transform information into knowledge are crucial
elements.
To illustrate what this means, the economic dimension of a sustainable knowledge
society can serve as an example. In this context (sic!), knowledge must comprise
the availability of scientific information and engineering know-how; the capabilities
to use this knowledge; the readiness to apply it in the production process to enable
innovation diffusion (more a matter of attitude and orientation); the insight to use it in
an environmentally and socially friendly manner (what kind of production technology is
developed?); the acceptance by consumers based on their perception of their individual
needs and wants influenced by ICT via advertising, TV and so on; and, finally, the
know-how (to date, often on a ‘handicraft’ basis) needed to establish the ‘physical
feedback loop’, when waste is considered a resource to be used and the better its
 Will the information society be sustainable? 93

quality the easier the recycling. This physical feedback is, like any feedback, a learning
opportunity for improving the products, at least as long as the producer is held
responsible for the efforts the re-user has to invest into recycling his product (Lorek
et al., 2002). This step, however, ICT seems not to have taken on a broad scale so far: the
new technology is based on the linear throughput model of early industrial modernity,
rather than on a post-fordistic reflexive modernity (Hildebrandt and Linne, 2000;
Scherhorn, 1997). The same kind of deconstruction of demand can be undertaken for the
social, environmental and institutional dimension, resulting in an even broader list of
knowledge sources and demand, dynamics to be taken into account and problems that
might be solved or created by different kinds of knowledge and their ways of application.

Figure 2 Sustainability core objectives

7 The role of ICT

Culture-based knowledge demand is obviously far from homogeneous; consequently, the

way to generate, transmit and apply the knowledge will be highly diversified. ICT has the
potential to improve the availability of certain kinds of knowledge (if the
contextualisation of the information provided by ICT works), whereas for others
(informal or traditional knowledge), its capabilities are rather limited. So any assessment
of the contribution of ICT to a sustainable knowledge society among other factors has to:
•% Reflect the uneven distribution of access to ICT, including limitations in the
possibilities and capabilities to use a computer or communication device.
These could be monetary or societal reasons such as habits, skills, legal rights
and so forth.
94 J.H. Spangenberg

•% Take into account the issue of distribution of ICT among age and professional
groups, the special role the technology can have for disabled persons (either
further isolating them or reconnecting them to the social environment), the role
of gender and a wider range of problems that arise with a wide use of ICT, for
example, changing perceptions and the lack of social contacts.
•% Be aware of problems of participation in a technology-based society,
including formal ones like the limited role that employee rights play in the
so-called ‘new economy’ so far and the role trade unions can or cannot play
in this context, and informal ones if decision making is transformed to
e-democracy or chat-room decisions, as these are communication patterns which
extend the decision preparation process to a larger group, but tend to exclude all
those who communicate in a different manner: an attempt to de-monopolise
decisions could end up as an oligarchic structure, with those outside more
rigorously excluded than ever before.
•% Consider the knowledge necessary to use ICT and possible lacks in ICT
hardware and software design that hamper the use, but also identify education
and training needs and possible benefits in the educational system resulting
from the use of ICT.
•% Provide guidelines and frameworks on how ICT should be designed and
managed, to avoid new social exclusions or negative environmental
impacts.

8 Measuring progress: towards indicators for the sustainable

knowledge society

Indicators are no end in themselves, they are purpose-bound tools to guide, support and
monitor decision making. Developing indicators for progress only makes sense once the
vision of a sustainable knowledge society has been formulated, which is not the case so
far. Objectives have to be defined, and indicators in relation to one or more properties
linked to these objectives. For example, competitiveness and economic growth are
strongly linked to innovations in the society, and active participation of citizens is only
possible when legal, economic, social and intellectual access to information and decision
making for all groups of society is guaranteed.
So far, no broad vision of a sustainable knowledge society has been suggested. There
are technology-driven outlooks neglecting the transformation towards sustainability, but
not even scenarios of a new knowledge society (as broadly understood as described
above) are available. Technology-oriented indicators are of limited usefulness in this
complex setting; with their supply-driven information, they might even distort the
development of demand-driven scenarios, as there are very
few indicators taking social objectives into account in combination with
technology-oriented matters. So sustainability indicators looking at social, economic,
environmental and institutional dimensions, although not designed for the special
requirements of the knowledge society, are the most appropriate starting point for
indicator development.
 Will the information society be sustainable? 95

Despite the narrow scientific base, new indicators are a political necessity, on the
regional as well as on the national and the European level, to provide decision makers
with the best available information on the priorities to be set for unfolding the sustainable
knowledge society. To serve for policy steering, indicators should be readily
understandable, integrate the different dimensions of sustainability and the technology
challenge, and be used mainly on existing data to permit quick and cost-effective
calculation.
From the sustainability debate, a number of indicators are already available
(Table 1). They refer to the well-established four dimensions of sustainability
(UNDPCSD, 1996), plus, explicitly, to their interlinkages to the fields of policy-making,
where compromises and solutions have to be found beyond the partisan interests
dominating the four dimensions.

Table 1 A coherent set of sustainable society indicators

(I) One-dimensional indicators

Economic • Growth of GDP/capita
• Inflation rate
Social • UNDP Human Poverty Index HPI 2
• Unemployment rate
Environmental • Environmental Space use
• Protected reserves (IUCN class 3, 4)
Institutional • Voter turnout in elections
• UNDP Gender Empowerment Measure GEM

(II) Inter-linkage indicators

Environmental-economic • Resource productivity (GDP/TMI)

• Transport intensity
Socio-economic • Labour productivity (production per capita)
• Income distribution per decentile
Socio-environmental • Environmental health problems
• Access to common goods (to be specified
regionally)
Economic-institutional • Corruption rate (Transparency International Index)
• Share of taxes on labour, capital and
the environment in total tax revenues
Socio-institutional • Co-decision rights of workers
• Reliability of the health care and social
security system
Environmental-institutional • NGO right to file suit
• Freedom of information
Source: Hinterberger et al. (1996) and Spangenberg et al. (2002).
96 J.H. Spangenberg

With only two key indicators for each dimension and interlinkage, the set of 20 core
sustainable development indicators presented in Table 1 describes progress in a most
systematic way. This one or a similar set of indicators would provide a useful basis for
long-term monitoring the progress of sustainable development on European and national
level: even if the main concerns change, individual indicators can be methodologically
updated or even replaced without changing the structure.
For the knowledge society, first the objectives to be pursued, and best generated by a
participative political process, have to be made explicit. Only then can indicators be
defined, structured in a similar fashion and operationalising the objectives for policy
implementation and monitoring. Some of the rather obvious and self-explanatory
objectives have to do with access, as access to all four dimensions is a critical element of
a dignified life and thus central to sustainable development. In particular, with the
transformation to a knowledge-based service economy, access rights become essential for
societal well-being. This includes:

•% Bio-physical environment: Access to land and nature use, to safe drinking

water and sanitation, to housing and energy, by access to the environment
as such and to adequate infrastructure, including access to the physical
means of a modern information society (computer, telephone
and internet access).
•% Economic dimension: On the individual level a safe minimum income to
guarantee active participation in society, that is, access to the sociocultural
system. For the national economy, access should include fair access to the
benefits of the economy, but also to the efforts to generate them, in both
the market economy (salaries and employment) and the non-market economy
(unpaid work, caring work, voluntary community work and the resulting
services). This includes access to markets for all potential producers,
that is, no entrance barriers, and access to finance, that is, non-discriminatory
credit conditions. On the international level this demands the removal of
obstacles to participate in the global economy, such as old (and long
written-off) debt, and of trade barriers erected by the affluent societies.
•% Social dimension: Access to knowledge, information and experience,
for example, by a non-discriminatory education, opportunity to work and
to participate in social processes, access to e-literacy, intellectual access
by learning to select and to transform information into relevant knowledge.
•% Institutional dimension: Access to information (newspapers, internet, oral
communication and expertise), information exchange (the right to free speech,
but also the right to actively provide content) and decision-making. The legal
rights to participation, the orientation of the public to equal access (e.g. equity
of gender and no discrimination of minorities), a participatory political system,
non-discriminatory social security systems. This includes access to justice,
legal provisions for access to economic, social and environmental resources.
The distribution of access is a yardstick for the intra-generational justice of a
society (see Figures 3 and 4).

The capability to provide and use infrastructure and content must be assessed by any set
of sustainable knowledge society indicators; therefore, two separate sets for knowledge
indicators and ICT indicators are suggested in Table 2. Regarding infrastructure
 Will the information society be sustainable? 97

availability, the number of internet users could be reported, and as far as relevant the
number of telephone main lines available and TV sets in use (referring to the user ability
to engage with new services and technologies). The relation of the disposable income and
the cost of a computer represent the economic access, and the rate of functional literacy
(e.g. based on the recent PISA study on educational success) represents the intellectual
access capabilities. Institutional indicators for the right to access and the appropriateness
of the institutional system should be developed. The user demand (% participating,
annual turnover) for consumption electronics, information technologies, data processing
services and the penetration of telephony services may be useful indicators for the
demand for new technologies and services.

Figure 3 Knowledge society core objectives

On the supply side, educational attainment in informatics, mathematics and electronics

might reflect the human resources available for the design of new applications and
artefacts for the knowledge society, and the number of internet hosts the design
capabilities for new services. For content provision, the number of national journals
on the net, the number of journalists reporting in the net, or similar criteria should
be developed to assess the availability of quality information from the home turf.
Finally, for business and industry, capabilities output of electronics, information
technology and data processing services may provide appropriate indicators. With this
set production and consumption, the demand pull as well as the supply push effects
are covered. However, when systematically analysing the dimensions and the
inter-linkages, the impact of ICT on the environment surprisingly turns out to be rather
unanalysed; further research work is needed to fill this gap and derive appropriate
indicators.
98 J.H. Spangenberg

Figure 4 Knowledge society interlinkage objectives

Table 2 Draft knowledge and ICT indicators for the sustainable knowledge society

(I) One-dimensional indicators

Dimension Knowledge draft indicator
Economic Years of education produced
per annum
Mean innovation diffusion speed
Social Rate of functional literacy
Turnover of arts and culture
Environmental Integration of environment in all
policy areas
Role of environment in economic,
social and political curricula
Institutional Education expenditure
Consumer information standards
(II) Inter-linkage indicators
Interlinkage Knowledge draft indicator
ICT draft indicator
Capability to provide ICT
infrastructure and content
ICT-based annual productivity
increase
Number of internet users by
gender and age group
Availability of communication
tools: TV sets, cell phones …
ICT energy consumption
(including net servers, stand
by, etc.)
Volume and value of ICT waste
recycled and disposed
Capability to use ICT
infrastructure and content
Attainment of gender specific
ICT training courses
ICT draft indicator
 Will the information society be sustainable? 99

Table 2 Draft knowledge and ICT indicators for the sustainable knowledge society
(continued)

(II) Inter-linkage indicators

Socio-economic
Economic-institutional
Socio-institutional
Source: Spangenberg et al. (2002).
Distribution of education and
training per income group
Knowledge intensity of the
production
Free access to basic and higher
education
Educational attainment in
informatics, engineering,
science and humanities
ICT cost (buying and using)
per disposable income
User demand
(%participating, turnover)
for consumer electronics,
data processing …
Diversity of media
ownership (print, TV and
ICT)
Taxation of internet business
transactions
Social security and co-
decision rights of ICT
workers, in particular part
time and home workers

Indicators such as the indicators suggested above are no substitute for clearly defined
policy targets as a result of the political process. On the contrary, they should reflect the
political will (as expressed in the objectives) and help in implementing it. What is already
evident from the descriptions of sustainability and the knowledge society is that there is
no one best solution or an ideal political instrument, but the need for a balanced and
balancing approach based on a mix of objectives, policies and instruments focused on the
aims of a sustainable knowledge society and open for the political/societal discussion
process.
Given the early state of the debate on measuring the trend towards a sustainable
knowledge society in an integrated fashion, these indicators are necessarily far from
complete or even final. Nonetheless, they illustrate the development principles and may
serve as a starting point for future efforts and improvements. In this sense, the
development of specific sets of objectives and their corresponding indicators represents a
first step towards a sustainable knowledge society, by providing a yardstick and a
measurement tool to measure impacts and changes against. Above all, however, it is
crucial for the positive outcome of this transformation that a clear vision of the
future society is broadly accepted, providing the framework and guidelines for further
societal development. In so far as the indicators suggested seem premature in this
respect, at least they provide an opportunity to thoroughly discuss the political objectives
to be substantiated to operationalise the orientation towards a sustainable knowledge
society.

9 The positive reality – not so positive

In the discussion about the knowledge society, a plethora of positive impacts are claimed:
for participation (e-democracy), accountability, economic growth, peace and the
environment, reminiscent of many of the hypes and hopes caused by the introduction of
the telegraph in the 19th century. Looking briefly at the facts as far as they are known so
far, the situation is rather sobering.
100 J.H. Spangenberg

Regarding information availability, more than 90% of the population have internet
access today in most OECD countries. However, only a small minority uses
the information on offer to inform themselves about political and community issues.
Practical services (e.g. shopping, booking, time tables) dominate, plus chatting, playing
and downloading sex and pornography. This pattern rather duplicates the one,
which emerged after the introduction of private TV and seems to reflect consumer
preferences.
As far as enhanced social cohesion through electronic participation is concerned, this
tends to give a stronger position to those already involved in participation processes, thus
further weakening the position of those who have been excluded beforehand. This is due
to not only to a lack of internet access or electronic literacy, but can also result from
specific work patterns and stress levels (shifting workers; 2 × 2 households: two jobs,
two kids), from a lack of interest (in particular, among the low educated), and from the
communication culture. The latter point is of special importance, since it is characteristic
of educated workers, and of management staff: they do prefer brief discussions and quick
decisions to time-consuming deliberation processes and consensus development.
Consequently, they tend to quit participation in discursive processes rather early, and are
not among the standard users of communication platforms and other participation tools
offered. As a result, e-democracy turns into e-oligarchy.
For the economy, there are no doubt on impacts, but contemporary economics
is desperately searching for an indication of how IT investment improved productivity
outside the IT sector, with limited success so far. Although they will probably find some
impact sooner or later, the effect seems to be far from revolutionary.
For the environment, increasing resource efficiency and the accelerating trend
towards an affluent service economy are referred to as developments, which reduce
the burden on the environment (the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis).
Unfortunately, empirical data do not support these claims. The service economy still
needs the physical infrastructure, and increases the level of mobility. Together, these
factors and the inertia of consumption patterns, unchanged by increasing income
(Spangenberg, 2001), keep the level of environmental pressures on a constant high level
at best (material flows), while, for other pollutants, it increases continuously (CO2
emissions) or even with accelerating speed (land use). Nonetheless the environmental
situation in the OECD countries may improve, since an increasing share of the impacts is
generated in resource exporting countries, mainly in the South (Giljum and Eisenmenger,
2003); this could be termed a ‘pollution export surplus’.

10 Conclusions

Unlike the information society, the knowledge society can be integrated into a
sustainable development strategy; there are significant possible synergies to be exploited.
However, this requires targeted policy measures, as the results of the current ‘free
running’ process illustrate.
However, in this broader context, the orientation towards a knowledge society will
imply a variety of changes in society, from the acceptance of different sources of
 Will the information society be sustainable? 101

knowledge to choosing a broader base of actors for decision-making. Embedded in such

a framework, ICT can be a helpful tool, but it cannot substitute for the changed political
and social setting.
Integrating sustainable development and the knowledge society is an opportunity not
to be missed from both communities, although, so far, a barely recognised one.

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