Scope of the Work Package
Work package 4 focuses on the dissemination of sustainability standards and norms in digital corporate networks as wells the potential emergence of new standards. On the other hand, new forms of interaction with stakeholders will be investigated, for example, sustainability reporting in the digital age.
The PhD project in WP 4 "Transparency and digital sustainability reporting" aims to evaluate the digital reorganization of the industrial value chain and the potentially associated increased transparency in the product life cycle with regard to the sustainability management of companies.
The digital scenario of a transparent production through the "interconnection and integration of all process levels of the company", across different company locations and even between different companies in the value chain and the associated "data exchange in almost real time across the entire production process" (Federal Ministry of Education and Research 2013: 10) could lead to a great potential for sustainability management - if the data were used and evaluated accordingly. By making sustainability impacts and risks transparent, companies would be able to strategically address the potentials and obstacles to achieve a sustainable development.
References
- Federal Ministry of Education and Research (2013): Zukunftsbild „Industrie 4.0“. Online available at https://www.bmbf.de/pub/Zukunftsbild_Industrie_40.pdf, Last checked at 19.02.2016.