A 'revolution' is taking place in the development of global information and communications technologies. In slightly more than a decade, the World Wide Web has gone from the idea of an obscure English scientist to a consumer- oriented technology system with an expected one billion users by 2005. The technologies that enable this to happen are advancing rapidly, which is leading to both an unprecedented number of start-up companies and a host of innovative new alliances between companies.

The growth has been so rapid and unexpected that little research and analysis has yet been done on what impact this transformation has had or will have on the ability of companies to meet the global sustainability challenge.

As environmental strategy has traditionally been portrayed in terms of risk cutting and resource efficiency, there is a danger that critical business issues such as information technology, R&D and e-commerce development are examined in isolation from the wider sustainable business perspective.

An important objective of the book is to explore, document and raise awareness of sustainability concerns arising from the emerging global information economy. The information economy is defined in the broadest sense possible, including software, hardware, telecommunication - traditional and wireless - and advanced communication technologies.

Some of the key issues and questions that are examined include:

We need to understand better how information and communication technologies can help us vector the three great waves of globalisation — markets, information and civil society — to a sustainable path. This book will help point the way.
Jonathan Lash, President, The World Resources Institute

Technological change is an too-often-neglected issue in policies and thinking directed at sustainable development, while new technologies will be crucial and have to be put in the centre. Park and Roome’s book takes up this challenge and explores lucidly many important aspects and ideas. It is imperative that leaders and policy-makers join this exploration.
Johan Schot, Co-Founder of the Greening of Industry Network and Director of the Foundation for the History of Technology

...a wealth of information! This books offers opportunities, challenges and perspectives in the relation of ICCE with ecology and economy. Tremendously stimulating; touching a multitude of issues which are under hot debate in the industry. Will ICCE simply happen or is there a choice? Stirring, intriguing and helpful!
Professor Ab Stevels, Senior Advisor, Environmental Competence Centre, Philips Consumer Electronics

It is hard for a general reader to see how the complex issues of sustainability, globalisation and ICCE technologies relate to each other. This book helps enormously to disentangle and then reassemble them in a digestible order — a very useful contribution indeed.
Christine Loh, CEO of an independent, non-profit public policy think-tank, Civic Exchange, and a former member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

The Ecology of the New Economy provides the most thoughtful, balanced perspective yet on the environmental impacts of the information revolution. This book will be tremendously valuable to regulators, corporate decision-makers, investors and non-government organisations interested in sustainability.
Bruce Paton, Director, The Silicon Valley Center for Innovation and Sustainability

This book is an informative read and well recommended. It provides the reader with current information and diverse analyses from the worlds of research, business and government/policy makers on this increasingly topical issue. Further it provides some inspirational thoughts for integrating sustainability into the digital economy.
Environmental Assessment Policy and Management

Wow! This book will convince even the most hard-nosed bean counter ... that environmental stewardship, green thinking and sustainable development have a place in the global arena of communication, dot.com, e-commerce and information technology. All the sections make extensive use of case studies and examples which help to give a reality perspective which is crucial for the skeptic and the conservative.
Eagle Bulletin

The volume provides an excellent snapshot of the dot-com era and its long-term effects on corporate citizenship theory and practice ... The authors clearly believe that understanding the evolution and importance of the digital economy requires macro- and microanalysis along natural, digital and competitive domains. Sustainable e-business practice demands a competent grasp of the interdependencies among these realms.
The Journal of Corporate Citizenship

... the doomsayers predict ICCE technologies will fuel further need for electricity, whereas the optimists project net savings. The scholarship encompassed by The Ecology of the New Economy suggests the truth is probably somewhere in between and is largly dependent on how these new technologies are deployed and whether their deployment is guided by sustainable development considerations... The Ecology of the New Economy is an important work in beginning that debate.
The Journal of Industrial Ecology

Jacob Park is a research scholar in the Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda, University of Maryland, USA, and a senior research consultant specialising in Japanese and Asian equities for corporate governance and socially responsible investment, Friends Ivory & Sime. A fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program, a working interim group member of the Greening of Industry Network and a member of Center for Environmental Citizenship’s board of directors, he will become an assistant professor in the business and economic department at Green Mountain College (Vermont, USA) in the fall of 2002.

Nigel Roome is the Head of Department and Chair of Sustainable Enterprise and Transformation, Erasmus Centre for Sustainable Development and Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is also the Chair of the Information and Communication Technologies Project, Industrial Transformation Programme, International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environment Change.