Sustainability and Digitalization as the Basic Principles of the German Environmental Agenda

Abstract

Digital ecology has recently become a conceptually new branch of knowledge and research. The development of digital ecology as a separate direction is explained due to the rapid transformation of the technosphere in the twenty-first century. This article examines the development of the digital ecology concept and introduced two theoretical approaches to the concept’s understanding resulting in separation digital ecology associated with mobile technologies, IT technologies and services from digital ecology as a product of the information systems functioning. The article investigates the synthesis of sustainable development and digitalization as the key features of the modern states’ environmental agenda. This paper analyzes the measures that are already undertaken in this field on the example of the Federal Republic of Germany and contains the study of such German projects within the digital agenda as ProgRess and Digital Product Passport. The central pillars for the implementation of the planned programs are outlined and the general recommendations for promoting digital ecology are developed.