Proceedings of the 2014 conference ICT for Sustainability

The second international conference on ICT for Sustainability, ICT4S 2014, took place in Stockholm in August 24-27 2014. ICT4S is a series of research conferences bringing together leading researchers, developers and government and industry representatives dedicated to exploring and proposing how Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) could be used as a tool to reach sustainability goals.

ICT for sustainability is about utilizing the transformational power of ICT for making our world more sustainable: saving energy and material resources by creating more value from less physical input, increasing quality of life for ever more people without compromising future generations’ ability to meet their needs.

The theme of ICT4S 2014 was “ICT and transformational change”. Sustainable development demands transformational changes regarding both technology and patterns of production and consumption. This conference explored the role of ICT in this process, including both positive and negative impacts of ICT on sustainability.

Altogether 100 full papers from 31 countries were submitted, of which 49 papers from 18 countries were accepted for oral presentation. The papers were single blind reviewed by three reviewers with a total of 302 reviews.

In the proceedings, you will find 47 out of the 49 full papers as well as 2 extended abstracts of papers that are published elsewhere, but that were orally presented at the ICT4S 2014-conference.

Moreover, 23 (12 countries) out of 32 (17 countries) submitted poster abstracts were accepted. In addition to these submissions, 7 papers that were regarded as better suited for poster presentation by the program committee were presented as posters.

In connection to the conference there was a Green Hackathon, and a number of workshops. The workshop review process and program was made possible and held together by workshop chairs Wolfgang Lohmann (UZH and Empa, Zurich) and Birgit Penzenstadler (UC Irvine), and the success of the workshops was ensured by the workshop organizers.

The conference had not been possible without the contributions from the 75 members of the program committee, from 18 countries, ensuring a conference of high scientific standard. Also contributing to the standard of the conference were the 8 members of the poster program committee.

An important part of the conference was the keynote speakers. Contributions from (in order of appearance) Göran Finnveden, (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm), Lorenz Hilty (UZH, Zurich), Lorraine Hudson, (Consultant Smart Cities, Bristol), Cecilia Katzeff (Interactive Institute, Eskilstuna), Svetoslav Mihaylov (DG Connect European Union, substituting Colette Maloney), Luis Neves (Deutsche Telekom and GeSI), Debra Richardson (UC Irvine, California) and Marko Turpeinen (EIT ICTLabs, Helsinki) highlighted the event.

Daniel Vare, local chair, has been key person for all organizational matters and for acting as contact point for speakers and participants.

The conference aimed at renewing and vitalizing the concept of scientific conferences with the help of a partly new design including "ConverStations" sessions and more time than usual for interaction of the highly competent participants. The facilitator Peter Woodward was responsible for the design and implementation of this.

The papers in the proceedings are organized into two “sessions”. One includes the eight papers nominated for the Best paper award and the other consists of all papers presented during the ConverStations.

Last but not least, we thank the conference sponsors: Ericsson, NCC, Sweco and TeliaSonera as well as the City of Stockholm for hosting the reception in the City Hall.

Mattias Höjer, Patricia Lago and Josefin Wangel
Proceedings Editors of ICT4S 2014