King's College London

Last month, the Centre for Sustainable Business (CSB) and the King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI) co-hosted a Grant Development Workshop, with a focus on digital sustainability.

The initiative was designed to spark dialogue on the future of digital sustainability, and how grant-funded research can address these challenges. Open to all colleagues within King’s, the workshop offered opportunities for inter-disciplinary collaboration and knowledge exchange.

This article shares the key insights and outcomes from the event.

The urgent challenges of digital sustainability

Led by Professor Jonatan Pinkse, Research Director of the CSB, and Professor Carmine Ventre, Interim Head of the Department of Informatics, the workshop began with participants discussing the most pressing challenges at the intersection of AI and sustainability.

With attendees from diverse specialties and research backgrounds, a broad range of topics were brought to the table, including:

• Data privacy and security concerns
• Data scarcity and energy-hungry data centres
• Resource optimisation
• Sustainable transport
• E-waste from AI device usage
• Ethics of AI recommendations for sustainable behaviours
• Green policy-making and internalising AI’s environmental costs
• Engaging SMEs in sustainable AI adoption
• Using AI to support collective-decision making and action
• Governance and control of AI systems
• Responses to climate disasters
• Inequality in access to resources and technologies
• Evaluation of AI systems for environmental impact

Tackling these topics: dreamers, realists and critics

Participants were then divided into three smaller groups to explore a key topic with three angles in mind: ‘dreamers’ (who ideate without constraints), ‘realists’ (who focus on planning and assessing practicality), and ‘critics’ (who evaluate these ideas critically).

Below are the three main challenges and responding insights developed by each group.

1. Environmental costs versus rewards of AI systems

One key issue identified was the effective evaluation and assessment of AI systems. Measuring energy production with AI is relatively straightforward, but sustainability extends beyond just energy. For example, using AI to monitor biodiversity can generate large amounts of data and thus create environmental costs. This presents the challenge of balancing intangible benefits (e.g. biodiversity improvements) with tangible costs (e.g. data usage).

From this, a question emerges: How do organisations evaluate these trade-offs when making decisions?

The group suggested the following:

• Create dynamic models that factor in high environmental costs of AI, both for short and long-term insights and developments over time.
• Develop simple tools using algorithms to help businesses, especially SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises), assess and balance different environmental impacts and issues. These tools would help them to implement nature-positive strategies while also considering environmental costs.

2. The perception of data value

Organisations often collect more data than they need, overlooking the potential cost implications. This issue stems from perceiving data as a low-cost commodity.

Indeed, users commonly relinquish data to organisations without realizing its value, leading to overarching concerns about the fair use of data. So how is it possible to make consumers and firms think more critically about their data usage?

The group discussion led to the following insights:

• Propose a control scorecard or system to help organisations evaluate risks associated with data collection, such as data leaks, environmental impact of gathering data, and inefficient use of human capital for unused data.
• Emphasise the environmental costs of unnecessary data. Use lifecycle assessments to make people aware that their digital activities, such as social media usage, are not neutral and have an environmental footprint.
• Increase visibility of the environmental impact of data, which could drive policy changes and urge organisations to manage their data responsibly.

3. Reducing waste and optimising resources

While AI is regarded as a tool that improves efficiency, it can also often create waste due to devices that become obsolete quickly or consume excessive energy. It is also important to consider the ethics of using AI to facilitate sustainable behaviours.

The group conceptualised the following insights on how AI can create and optimise sustainable solutions:

• Develop robots for river waste collection and AI assistants offering personalised advice to users on sustainable behaviour.
• Conduct studies on what people think of these systems and incorporate this feedback into the system design, whilst being considerate of privacy concerns and other inputs. Work with local communities and NGOs to develop training and awareness.
• Consider whether the design of the AI and robots are affordable, long-lasting and practical. Anticipate other issues such as excessive energy consumption, incorrect assistance, and breakdowns, which could lead to more waste.
• Ensure these AI assistants would be available even for off-grid communities.

The King's Climate & Sustainability Seed Fund

At the event, we promoted the opportunity to apply for the King's Climate & Sustainability Seed Fund,

The Seed Fund helps staff secure external research and innovation funds by providing an initial resource to develop preliminary studies and partnerships, as well as linking projects with support from Research Development Managers.

The fund supports two types of proposals:

• Smaller awards of £15,000 to £60,000 for focused developments, especially in the early rounds (typically 6-12 months);
  
  
• Larger awards of £60,000 to £125,000, to develop well-defined opportunities to apply for major awards, important partnerships or centre-type grants (6-18 months).

Full details on the seed fund can be found on the website.

Final thoughts

We would like to say thank you to our speakers and all attendees for bringing their expertise, experience and creativity to this event.

Moving forward, we hope the ideas from this workshop can serve as a foundation for future research and practical implementations to drive the sustainable and efficient deployment of AI technologies.

Upcoming events at the Centre for Sustainable Business

The Centre has an active calendar of events, such as our monthly Responsible Business Salons. Visit our events section to browse upcoming events and book your space.