Go to New Site: Immaterialisation.org
The new Information Society Technologies of computing and communications, IST, can be used to support global sustainability, not simply by making consumer goods more efficient in their use of materials, but rather by replacing them with completely new types of goods that are inherently more sustainable because they involve very little material use. This is the topic known as immaterialisation:
The ASSIST study developed a new and, for the first time, implementable paradigm for immaterialisation leading to a clear prescription of the manner in which the Information Society may contribute best to Sustainable development, and also to a new understanding of the operation of Rebound Effects and the manner of their operation. This new in-deapth site at Immaterialisation.org is the post-project repository for the results of the ASSIST study.
The Study in Brief (Goals)
The ASSIST team has been charged by the Information Society Technologies Programme of the European Commission to report on ways of developing and expanding the potential for achieving sustainability by encouraging the development of Information Society Technology based alternatives to material consumption, and so reducing consumption of all kinds as a step toward a more sustainable world.
As set out in the programme's Presentation, the goal is to clarify for policy makers at all levels the nature of those human needs that can be best satisfied by new IST services. The longer term objective will be to provide fresh perspective on the development of lifestyles that could contribute towards the next generation's grasping immaterialisation as an improvement on purely material goods as well as a substitute for them. Through its contribution the ASSIST team is hoping to provide an impetus to the move to creating a Sustainable Information Society that will better serve the environment, quality of life, and social justice alike.
The Outreach Program
Welcome. We are making a real effort to open up the results of the work and findings of the ASSIST team as the earliest possible, so that others can profit from it and, it is to be hoped, provide us with their feedback, ideas and critical suggestions for improvements as we go along.
In order to access the latest publicly available working papers, we invite you to click the Outreach Library here.
Further background on the Outreach Program and how to make use of it, is available to you here.
If you have comments or suggestions for us, you are invited to address them either in private to the team leader, Stephen Simmons, or to the group as a whole via the Group Email Link.