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Novel technologies are continually being developed every day. Lessons from the past show that some resulted in unintended harm to the Earth’s system. The challenge for organizations working at the interface of the environment, technology, and society is, therefore, how to best harness the environmental benefits from new technologies while minimizing their potential adverse effects. Here, we identify some of the emerging technologies that the international development community needs to consider as it seeks to take advantage of new technologies to promote sustainable development. There are several innovations – such as blockchain, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, cellular agriculture, and gene editing techniques that could either positively or negatively affect the environment, food security, human health, and the transition to clean energy. Some of their benefits and potential environmental and socio-economic concerns are discussed. We further suggest actions that can be taken by organizations involved in sustainable development, such as the United Nations and other global and regional bodies, to exploit the benefits from novel technologies and mitigate their risks.

Additive manufacturing (AM), commonly known as “three-dimensional (3D) printing,” is the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, usually layer by layer. AM provides a cost-effective and time-efficient way to fabricate products with complicated geometries and advanced material properties and functionality. Based on the 2014 National Science Foundation (NSF) Workshop on Environmental Implications of Additive Manufacturing, this paper outlines potential environmental implications of AM related to key issues including energy use, occupational health, waste, lifecycle impact, and cross-cutting and policy issues, in terms of their current state-of-the-art, research needs, and recommendations, respectively.

Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary field that brings together biology and engineering at its core. Understanding and evaluating the ecological effects of synthetic biology applications also require broad interdisciplinary convergence and the ability to adapt to rapid technological developments. This article describes a series of workshops designed to provide a space for interdisciplinary groups of synthetic biologists, natural and social scientists, and other stakeholders to identify priority ecological hazards and to begin to design research programs to inform ecological risk assessments and risk management of synthetic biology applications. Participants identified gene flow, fitness, and competition as the key hazards of synthetic biology applications using engineered microorganisms. The rapid pace of synthetic biology research and product development, the potential environmental release of numerous applications, and the diffuse and diverse nature of the research community are prompting renewed attention on how to design robust ecological risk research programs to investigate such hazards.

Many of our current environmental challenges unfold over such vast spatial scales and create consequences of such broad scope that they require a qualitatively different kind of scientific and soci...

Public awareness and governmental involvement in overseeing the responsible development of nanotechnologies is lagging far behind the rapid pace of nanotechnology development and commercialization. Numerous products containing nanomaterials are already on the market and many more complex products are sure to follow. This paper highlights some of the recent work conducted by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, a partnership between the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and The Pew Charitable Trusts. The paper summarizes the Project's research and findings regarding nanotech oversight, public awareness and attitudes, and work to develop a more strategic approach to addressing the potential risks associated with nanotech-based materials and products. We present these observations as a set of field notes from the rapidly changing “nanofrontier.”

To document the marketing and distribution of nano-enabled products into the commercial marketplace, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies created the Nanotechnology Consumer Products Inventory (CPI) in 2005. The objective of this present work is to redevelop the CPI by leading a research effort to increase the usefulness and reliability of this inventory. We created eight new descriptors for consumer products, including information pertaining to the nanomaterials contained in each product. The project was motivated by the recognition that a diverse group of stakeholders from academia, industry, and state/federal government had become highly dependent on the inventory as an important resource and bellweather of the pervasiveness of nanotechnology in society. We interviewed 68 nanotechnology experts to assess key information needs. Their answers guided inventory modifications by providing a clear conceptual framework best suited for user expectations. The revised inventory was released in October 2013. It currently lists 1814 consumer products from 622 companies in 32 countries. The Health and Fitness category contains the most products (762, or 42% of the total). Silver is the most frequently used nanomaterial (435 products, or 24%); however, 49% of the products (889) included in the CPI do not provide the composition of the nanomaterial used in them. About 29% of the CPI (528 products) contain nanomaterials suspended in a variety of liquid media and dermal contact is the most likely exposure scenario from their use. The majority (1288 products, or 71%) of the products do not present enough supporting information to corroborate the claim that nanomaterials are used. The modified CPI has enabled crowdsourcing capabilities, which allow users to suggest edits to any entry and permits researchers to upload new findings ranging from human and environmental exposure data to complete life cycle assessments. There are inherent limitations to this type of database, but these modifications to the inventory addressed the majority of criticisms raised in published literature and in surveys of nanotechnology stakeholders and experts. The development of standardized methods and metrics for nanomaterial characterization and labelling in consumer products can lead to greater understanding between the key stakeholders in nanotechnology, especially consumers, researchers, regulators, and industry. ICTAS Virginia Tech Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology National Science Foundation NSF Cooperative Agreement EF-0830093

In the fall of 2001, the Foresight and Governance Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center began a process to develop long‐term (40‐50 year) goals for governments. This project, supported by NASA, involved both domestic and international surveys and a workshop held in May of 2002. The workshop produced ten high priority goals and examined these goals in terms of their importance, acceptability, and possibility as well as exploring key actors and barriers to implementation. Work is now underway to develop scenarios to reach each of these goals and expand the network of stakeholders involved in the project.

Summary Over the past decade, advances in computing, combined with new techniques for virtual prototyping and simulation, have altered our approach to the areas of training, design, and product and process development. Taken collectively these capabilities represent one of the most significant changes in the production paradigm since the beginning of mass production and one with important implications for the environment. These advances need to be viewed as more than just a new set of tools in the industrial ecology tool box They provide the basis for a fundamental shift in how we learn and solve environmental problems-an opportunity to move from learning too late to learning before doing. Industrial ecology can embrace and articulate this new framework for learning and apply it broadly to the challenge of facilitating social and technological change and innovation in an increasingly complex world.

As nanotechnology applications are being developed to provide novel solutions to many of the world’s water problems—from developing improved desalination methods to cleaning up emerging pollutants—the international community has a unique opportunity to develop and implement new kinds of governance systems that will ensure that these applications can reach the market quickly, efficiently, and successfully. National and international regulatory bodies, from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States to the United Nations Water Program (UN-Water), can address this challenge of applying nanotechnology to improving water quality by adopting methodologies that spur innovation for development early in the research process, focusing on new ways of disseminating information about nanotechnology water applications, and considering the full life cycle of nanotechnology water applications. This chapter will investigate some of the ways that barriers to collaboration around nanotechnology water applications in the international arena can be overcome. It begins by diagnosing the need for policy interventions with respect to nanotechnology and water and then offers a series of recommendations for approaches that may successfully address these challenges. The main purpose is to present an emerging set of policy options that can accelerate the application of nanotechnology toward improving water quality. However, without appropriate supportive policy options that can advance innovation responsibly, there is a potential that these benefits could be lost due to delay, lack of commercialization opportunity, and poor public outreach and communication.

Summary Although industrial ecology represents a captivating metaphor and rich repertoire of analytical tools, its impact on environmental policy has been marginal at best. This article examines the insights provided by the studies of three common materials in the US. economy-lead, arsenic, and silver-and the abilrty of such studies to illuminate some larger and looming challenges for future environmental policy. Three specific challenges are explored: the flow of materials across national borders, the increasing embodiment of emissions in products, and the dangers of unchallenged assumptions about the drivers of material flows. The article argues that industrial ecology can inform public policy but that it is time for the practitioners of industrial ecology, an applied science, to apply it in the often messy world of environmental policymaking.

Systematic convergence in knowledge and technology promises to increase the rate of scientific breakthroughs, lead to the establishment of new S&T domains and support growing expectations for human progress, including improved productivity, education, and quality of life. A virtual spiral of creativity and innovation will have a significant effect on innovation, productivity, and commercialization. This chapter outlines societal dimensions and innovative and responsible governance of converging knowledge and technologies and the roles of individuals and public. Several goals for the next ten to advance innovation, economic productivity, human and quality of life are presented. Infrastructure needs and R&D strategies are focused on open-source, long-term planning, anticipatory and participatory governance, as well as harmonizing regulations among emerging technologies and internationally. Several priorities and possibilities are suggested for innovative and responsible governance of emerging and converging technologies, including national R&D centers, regulatory measures, and long-term planning.

Whereas the R&D process of convergence of knowledge and technology has been largely reactive or coincidental in the past, there is a growing realization among the world’s scientific communities that to take best advantage of scientific innovation trends and govern them appropriately, there must be a more proactive, focused effort to support convergence, and that investments in innovative technology development must more effectively both engage and benefit society and also take into consideration equity and sustainability concerns. This chapter describes a framework and means to effectively focus societal support for convergence. A “science of convergence” will help to accomplish these goals and promote valuable technological and societal synergies based on higher-level scientific languages, a holistic view of society, updated governance models, and vision-inspired basic research that is geared to societal benefit. Creativity and innovation are enhanced by the circuit of information and ideas between various platforms of the human activity system. As exchanges happen faster and between larger domains within the platforms, the foundation for creativity, innovation, and economic and societal benefit broadens. This is a global phenomenon.

Over the past 30 years, we have passed through multiple technological frontiers at rapid rates – biotechnology (1970s), genetics (1980s), cognitive neuroscience (1990s), nanotechnologies (2000s), now synthetic biology (2010s), and the growing convergence between these areas. Though rules and responsibilities are different on the technological frontier (and ignoring these differences can create or amplify risks), it has become more obvious that governments have no coherent “frontier strategy” beyond ad-hoc and lagging responses to emerging problems. This chapter explores governance challenges on the technological frontier, including how behavioral dynamics and biases, both at individual and organizational levels, can actually create new risks and how framing strategies can create blind spots in governance and oversight approaches. In addition, the chapter explores ways of addressing the increasing gap between the rate of technological change and the pace of governance innovation, including the use of frugal decision heuristics, open-source innovation models, prediction markets, new organizational forms (which include workforce preparation), and methods for prototyping new governance paradigms. The goal is to move towards a persistent co-evolution model that links innovations in governance with discovery and innovation in science and technology.

Sustainability science suggests that effective environmental protection requires an integrated systems approach.

Nanotechnology is expected to be the key technology of the 21st century. Researchers are exploring ways to see and build at this scale, reengineering familiar substances like carbon and silver to create new materials with novel properties and functions. However, the emergence of nanotechnology also provides us with an opportunity to reshape how the public perceives the government's ability to manage risks posed by new technologies. As the first wave of nano-based products? including cosmetics, dietary supplements, food additives, and consumer products?enters the market, society will begin to ask questions about the health, environmental, and safety implications of these materials. The purpose of this paper is to connect the current state of such public perceptions?both with respect to nanotechnology, in particular, and to emerging technologies, in general? with the current state of nanotechnology product development and to analyze how well situated the public sector is to deal with these challenges.

The Internet-led digital economy is changing both the production and consumption patterns at the global scale. Although great potential exists to harness information technology in general and the Internet in particular and improve the environment, possible negative impacts of e-commerce on the environment should also be considered and dealt with. In this forum, we discuss both the potential positive and negative impacts of e-commerce. Drawing from insights gained from the complexity theory, we also delineate some broad contours for environmental policies in the information age. Given the paradoxical nature of technological innovations, we want to caution the scientific community and policymakers not to treat the Internet as the Holy Grail for environmental salvation.

Summary The National Research Council (NRC), which carries out studies for the U.S. National Academies, released a scathing report in December that highlights the shortfalls of the Bush administration's effort to determine the environment, health and safety (EHS) risks posed by engineered nanomaterials – a backbone of worldwide innovation. The NRC report, which was authored by an independent body of experts, highlights how understanding risks will help foster innovation. The NRC report is – if nothing else – an ideal opportunity for a new start.

Addressing serious environmental and economic challenges in the United States will require organizational changes at the federal level.

Assess the ecological risks of synthetic microbes before they escape the lab, say Genya V. Dana, Todd Kuiken, David Rejeski and Allison A. Snow.

Voluntary reporting of nanomaterials by industry has failed. Mandatory measures are a step in the right direction, but the field needs more data sharing and oversight, say Andrew Maynard and David Rejeski.

The Department of Landscape Planning (part of the Environmental Agency) in Hamburg, Germany, is undertaking a project to address the existing disparity between energy and land-use planning. This project involves the integration of energy-relevant parameters in new land-use plans currently being developed for the entire Hamburg area. In order to facilitate this integration, a comprehensive cartographic process has been developed that is compatible with the existing mapping and planning techniques used by the Department. This mapping process consists of a series of overlay maps designed to produce a composite picture of existing energy use, conservation and renewable resource potential, and environmental impacts associated with existing energy production.