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Chapters from the paperback
- Introduction
- Ecocriticism
- Optimisation
- Grounded Economic Awareness
- Advertising Awareness
- Transition Skills
- Commons Thinking
- Effortless Action
- Permaculture Design
- Community Gardening
- Ecological Intelligence
- Systems Thinking
- Gaia Awareness
- Futures Thinking
- Values Reflection and the Earth Charter
- Social Conscience
- New Media Literacy
- Cultural Literacy
- Carbon Capability
- Greening Business
- Materials Awareness
- Appropriate Technology and Appropriate Design
- Technology Appraisal
- Complexity, Systems Thinking and Practice
- Coping with Complexity
- Emotional Wellbeing
- Finding Meaning Without Consuming
- Being in the World
- Beauty as a Way of Knowing
- Citizen Engagement
- Re-Educating the Person
- Institutional Transformation
- A Learning Society
- Additional chapters
- Interviews
Home » The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy » Chapters from the paperback » Technology Appraisal
Technology Appraisal
Technology Appraisal: the ability to evaluate technological innovations. Gavin D. J. Harper, The Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society, Cardiff University
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Consumers are being increasingly bombarded with so-called ‘green-innovations’ - devices that claim to have enhanced environmental performance, offer superior benefits over their competitors, or claim some kind of eco-advantage as the result of innovation. Indeed, in these fast-moving times of sustainable innovation, there is a plethora of devices, widgets and technologies all vying for the consumers' attention. Sustainable technologies, however, have not yet been codified into standards, and there is insufficient performance data to evaluate their ‘real world’ performance...The ability to look at a new product, and, with some knowledge of the underpinning technologies, make a judgement on how well it is likely to work, how useful it is and whether it is an efficient solution that society should adopt is likely to become an increasingly useful skill as the traditional orthodoxies of dominant technologies are challenged by new, more sustainable alternatives.
