Why it’s time to make digitalisation sustainable

The digital revolution promises dream lifestyles, solutions to the world’s toughest challenges and the elimination of work, disease and even death. But it comes with a downside, says Simon Carter.

Carter is the managing director of Morphosis, a corporate sustainability strategy practice specialising in real estate. He’s spent the last couple of years scrutinising digitalisation in the context of real estate and cities and calls for leadership from Australia’s property industry.

Crossing the Threshold: A primer for sustainable digitalisation in real estate and cities, was developed by Carter and published by RICS to “make digitalisation sustainable, seize the opportunities and manage the risks”, he says. 

Digitalisation is the large-scale application of digital technologies, from artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles (AVs) to robotics and virtual reality.

“Digitalisation is reshaping everything – our businesses, governments, cities, institutions and economies, but also our society and ultimately our species,” Carter explains.

“We are deploying technology like crazy, and there are many extraordinary opportunities in areas such as health, science and environmental sustainability. But we are not paying attention to where this technology is taking us.”

“We are digitalising mindlessly,” Carter says, and points to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment last year that the nation at the forefront of artificial intelligence “will become the ruler of the world”.

“There are many very powerful forces driving digitalisation forward, but society and business is not yet ready to take a responsible, risk-managed approach.

“There is enormous public acceptance of these transformative technologies. You could even call it complacency. We are all on our iPhones clicking ‘I agree’ every day, but we aren’t seeing the forest for the trees.

“Our boards and IT departments are focused on cybersecurity. Property groups are turning to innovation to improve property products. Marketing teams are looking at online presence. In our private lives, we are talking to Alexa and fascinated by AVs and the future of Facebook with privacy. We are seeing the individual reference points, but not what they all add up to: the digitalisation mega-trend.”

Digitalisation should be “squarely in the sustainability frame”. It presents many environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues – both risks and opportunities.

Crossing the Threshold maps 24 digitalisation-driven ESG issues for real estate stakeholders, ranging from transparency, job automation and privacy to construction site safety, e-waste and mental wellbeing. “It encourages organisations to start examining the consequences of these to their businesses and stakeholders, now and into the future,” Carter says.

“Any good business identifies and manages risks in order to be able to leverage opportunities and sustain prosperity. We need to apply this thinking to digitalisation and work towards digitalisation that is responsible, ethical and sustainable”.

Carter remains optimistic that the real estate industry will navigate sustainable digitalisation.

“The Australian property industry is, as everyone knows, world leading in sustainability. Just look at the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and GRESB. Sustainable digitalisation in simplest terms means working with an expanded set of ESG issues. If any sector is going to lead on this, ours is primed, and it will greatly help the liveability, resilience and sustainability of our cities and their competitiveness.”

RICS is examining the future for its profession in the context of digitalisation, and Carter suggests all organisations and sectors of the industry need to go on the same journey. “This includes understanding what our customers, communities, cities and other stakeholders are going to need of us in our digitalised future and what we now need to do to make that future a sustainable one.”

Crossing the Threshold is endorsed by the Property Council of Australia, Green Building Council of Australia and Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia.

Download Crossing the Threshold: A primer for sustainable digitalisation in real estate and cities.