POWER AND ETHICS IN THE MOTIVATION AND APPLICATION OF GREEN TECHNOLOGY

The information and communication sector is responsible for roughly 4% of global electricity consumption as well as the emission of 730 million metric tons of CO2-eq or 1.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Cunliff, 2020). This research will investigate the intersection of power, ethics, and green technology. A primary point is to analyze the obligation of consumers and organizations to utilize information technology to help mitigate climate change contributions. Secondly, to what extent are governments obligated to create regulations for organizations in order to reduce their contributions to climate change? Finally, given that green technology can dampen economic expansion, is this an acceptable reason to slow or stop the implementation of such technology? Given the large scope of this study (individual to planet), the most appropriate framework for ethical analysis is discourse ethics. Discourse ethics employs three strategies: conceptual investigations, where different stakeholders debate the relative importance of particular values, empirical investigations of the actual context of use, and technical investigations of the extent to which available technology could in fact support or hinder particular values (Mingers and Walsham, 2010; Habermas 1992)