The concept of technology assessment – an entire process to sustainable development

✍ Scribed by Bjørn Ludwig

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 138 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0968-0802
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1719(199712)5:3<111::aid-sd72>3.0.co;2-a

✦ Synopsis

The `widespread agreement' for sustainability requirements concerning any future development is an expression applicable only to the abstract level of the discussion. Due to the huge number of aspects of sustainable development considered after the Rio Earth Summit, it is dif®cult to ®nd the same agreement in a more detailed form. Focusing on the chief aspects of the discussion about sustainable development, namely the global problems that have progressively developed since the 1960s, the concept of technology assessment (TA) is obviously based on the same origins, although developed separately. TA is a powerful strategy with which to generate the appropriate technologies necessary to achieve any sustainable development.

In this contribution, TA studies are introduced as sustainable feasibility studies, a tool to help sustainable development become operational. In order to unify the discussion and achieve increasing application of TA, a description of TA is presented that readily includes all instruments, such as life cycle assessment, environmental impact assessment or environmental audit, and makes the interactions between them visible.