Internet of Things Guidelines for Sustainability

The World Economic Forum's guidelines argue that while the IoT has significant potential to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), sustainability is often an "accidental afterthought" in commercial design. The guide proposes structural incentives for governments, collaborative partnerships to reduce market fragmentation, and the adoption of the SDG framework to measure impact. It emphasizes that integrating sustainability at the design phase can enhance brand reputation, attract top talent from the under-30 demographic, and unlock institutional investment by bundling projects to achieve necessary scale.

• Analysis of 643 IoT deployments indicates that 84% of these projects either currently address or have the potential to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• The majority of IoT projects that support SDGs focus on five specific goals: SDG 3 (good health and well-being), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities), and SDG 12 (responsible production and consumption).
• Sustainability is frequently overlooked during the initial design phase of IoT projects, leading to what is described as "accidental sustainability."
• To encourage the prioritization of sustainability at the design phase, 90% of interviewed experts prefer a combination of government incentives—such as tax credits or preferential loan terms—and private-sector goodwill over government regulation.
• Market fragmentation in the IoT sector, characterized by over 400 platform providers, leads to higher costs, lack of industry-wide standards, and interoperability issues, which can be mitigated in the short term through collaborative partnerships that sell outcomes rather than technology.
• Institutional investors (such as sovereign wealth funds and private equity) are often deterred by the small size of individual IoT projects; this can be overcome by consolidating demand or bundling different projects to increase the total ticket size.
• There is a significant opportunity to develop a robust, fair, and inexpensive external accreditation programme for the IoT industry similar to the LEED system used in green building.

APA

World Economic Forum (2018). Internet of Things Guidelines for Sustainability. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/IoTGuidelinesforSustainability.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Internet of Things Guidelines for Sustainability. 2018. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/IoTGuidelinesforSustainability.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Internet of Things Guidelines for Sustainability |date=January 2018 |url=http://www3.weforum.org/docs/IoTGuidelinesforSustainability.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2018internet, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Internet of Things Guidelines for Sustainability}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2018}, month = jan, url = {http://www3.weforum.org/docs/IoTGuidelinesforSustainability.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }