Embedding sustainability in software design and development: accessible digital tools for local communities

In the domains of civic participation and social economies, there is increasing demand for digital technologies that are environmentally and socially sustainable, and which reflect the needs of individuals and communities. However, digital alternatives to mainstream Big Tech platforms often struggle to establish themselves or they require medium-to-high digital skills to use them. This chapter presents the ongoing work of the Digital Territories and Communities research group on the development of digital tools that enable participatory practices in urban communities. The research approach is interdisciplinary between computer science and social sciences. It addresses in particular the social aspects of digital sustainability and revolves around: redeployment of mainstream technologies to make them civic and local; their technical and economic accessibility; and the leveraging of cultural processes of digital facilitation. We provide examples from concrete experimentations with a civic social network and a civic blockchain wallet. Contemporary debates on digital geographies inspire reflections on: the role of experimental research in the provision of sustainable digital solutions, how the approach presented here provides technical and cultural access points to the complexity of digital sustainability, and the need to deal with tensions and paradoxes from the intertwining of social, economic and environmental sustainability.