U Shaped Impact of Digital Technology Adoption on Environmental Sustainability

This research was an initiative to analyze the relationship between digital technology adoption and environmental sustainability with the application of quadratic modeling, regression analysis, and innovation diffusion analysis, and to project a systematic assessment method applicable to identify the stages of digital adoption impacting sustainability outcomes. Using a data-driven approach with regional economic and technological knowledge in this study, an integrated sustainability framework was computed and classified into distinct levels of digital adoption. During the process, a set of economic and environmental indicators were selected (here, GDP, industrial structure, and policy measures) together with the degree of progression in sustainability of digital technology adoption. Integrated policy modeling and U-shaped relationship analysis and models were applied to generate the necessary factors (sustainability impact) maps for a region-specific approach. The quadratic model, along with correlation analysis method, was used to evaluate the factors and, on the other hand, predictive modeling was applied for calculating future sustainability outcomes. The entire process was executed in the integrated data analysis and visualization software tool that supports multi-level modeling. The results showed that the overall sustainability performance of the area was at moderate level and was partly determined by early stages of digital adoption challenges. Areas under higher adoption levels of digital technology indicated that the sustainability status showed marked improvements in these parts of the region. The study also revealed that policy measures and industrial structure have serious influence on the environmental sustainability outcomes of the digital adoption process. Considering socio-economic characteristics of the regions, the study area was further categorized into four priority zones which may serve as base reference points of sustainability planning for the adoption process.