Incorporating Animals as Stakeholders in ICT: Towards Truly Inclusive Digital Sustainability

Roberto Vergallo, Luca Mainetti

2025

Abstract

The digital revolution has driven unprecedented technological advancements, transforming modern life and addressing global challenges. However, while sustainability efforts in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are addressing environmental issues like energy consumption and carbon footprints, the ethical implications for non-human animals remain largely unexplored. This position paper calls for a redefinition of sustainability in ICT to include animal welfare as a core principle. We argue that animals should be recognized not only as indirect stakeholders impacted by technological progress but as direct beneficiaries of ethical digital practices. For the first time, we propose the concept of vegan digital product, also introducing an interdisciplinary methodological framework that prioritize animal welfare in digital design and policy-making. Particularly, the framework incorporates animal welfare as a scope-based non-functional requirement in ICT projects, including a draft for quantitative metrics based on the Value of Statistical Life (VSL).

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Vergallo R. and Mainetti L. (2025). Incorporating Animals as Stakeholders in ICT: Towards Truly Inclusive Digital Sustainability. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Smart Cities and Green ICT Systems - Volume 1: SMARTGREENS; ISBN 978-989-758-751-1, SciTePress, pages 147-154. DOI: 10.5220/0013431100003953

in Bibtex Style

@conference{smartgreens25,
author={Roberto Vergallo and Luca Mainetti},
title={Incorporating Animals as Stakeholders in ICT: Towards Truly Inclusive Digital Sustainability},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Smart Cities and Green ICT Systems - Volume 1: SMARTGREENS},
year={2025},
pages={147-154},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013431100003953},
isbn={978-989-758-751-1},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Smart Cities and Green ICT Systems - Volume 1: SMARTGREENS
TI - Incorporating Animals as Stakeholders in ICT: Towards Truly Inclusive Digital Sustainability
SN - 978-989-758-751-1
AU - Vergallo R.
AU - Mainetti L.
PY - 2025
SP - 147
EP - 154
DO - 10.5220/0013431100003953
PB - SciTePress