Digitalisation is often framed as a clean and immaterial solution to sustainability challenges. Yet digital technologies consume vast amounts of energy and minerals, and depend on hidden and exploitative forms of work, while their impacts remain largely invisible.
In public debate, hope functions like a double-edged sword: it can inspire collective action, but it often turns into cruel optimism—an attachment to technological promises that, while appearing hopeful, sustains the very conditions that endanger a sustainable future.
This talk by Academy Research Fellow Johanna Ahola-Launonen explores why we tend to place too much trust in technological solutions, from the illusion of immateriality and outsourced harms to fossil-era worldviews, repeating hype cycles and the political appeal of “win–win” narratives.
Drawing on the SUSTHOPE project, Ahola-Launonen argues that sustainable hope requires recognising that the “triumph” of technological progress in our societies has been deeply ambivalent. Such a re-reading of the past opens the possibility of imagining digital futures that do not rely on endless growth. This, in turn, calls for measures such as prioritisation, limits, and decolonial awareness of the material underpinnings of digitalisation.
After Johanna's talk, we engage in discussions and casual mingling over coffee / tea. Welcome!
