We research how AI and digitalisation may contribute to innovative solutions for sustainability without causing environmental and social burdens themselves.
The race to develop novel AI technology has been associated with several sustainability challenges. With our research we address environmental and socio-ethical concerns related to the increased digitalisation of both personal and professional activities.
We investigate the overall environmental impacts of AI and digitalisation, without being limited to the broadly discussed energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Water footprint, material use, land use, optimisation of energy use and other are important aspects in our work.
Our research contributes to the development of responsible AI and digital systems through ensuring, among other things, secure data management and -processing, traceability and interoperability of data across multiple stakeholders. It ensures better understanding of the hidden implications of AI and digitalisation, contributing to the much-wanted transparency in terms of environmental and socio-ethical performance. We have the ambition that our contributions benefit not only the providers and direct users, but to a greater extent society as a whole.
Our work relies on state-of-the-art literature and methodologies on the environmental and socio-ethical implications of AI and digitalisation. Our environmental assessments are based on livsløpsvurderinger (LCA) , with the intention to provide complete results for the environmental performance of AI systems.
Despite current challenges with applying LCA on AI systems (e.g. definition of system boundaries, life cycle stages, or functional units), we are investigating methods to map system flows more accurately and to overcome potential data gaps. For the ethical assessments, we apply state-of-the-art methodologies and frameworks, which are selected according to the needs of the developers and literature recommendations.
With the knowledge we produce, developers can improve the trustworthiness of their tools by safeguarding a better environmental performance, limiting potential adverse impacts on users, and boosting the responsible use of digital tools within organizations.
In AIrene we explore the environmental impacts and ethical implications of an in-house built AI-assistant specialising in renewable energy. Becour – our commissioner – wishes to integrate sustainability principles in the design and deployment of Airene and ensure responsible use of their tool.
We are proud to be a member of MishMash Centre for AI and Creativity, one of the Norwegian AI centres funded by the Research Council of Norway in the period 2025-2030. We are directly involved in WP5, where we will assess the environmental impacts of the use of AI in creative and cultural industries. Our goal is to better understand the implications and actively contribute to the sustainable use of AI in cultural and creative activities.
In SeConDPass we will address challenges related to the quality and integrity of Digital Product Passports (DPPs) by developing innovative methods, algorithms, and software frameworks to ensure scalability and integration across various domains.
