Sustainability has definitively entered institutional vocabulary – it is in reports, strategies, business and political speeches. It often lends itself to various forms of washing and is repeated so often that its meaning seems to escape from us.
The ESG model (Environmental, Social, and Governance) has brought some discipline to the way organizations integrate non-financial factors and represented a significant advance in the framing and systematization of sustainability issues, but commitment remains insufficient across the board and metrics remain largely inoperative or overly formal.
Added to this is an innovative vector of complexity, which disrupts conceptual understanding and hinders the perception of the axiological hierarchy that must be recognized — I am referring to a dimension that precedes all others, which is the informational environment where these topics are constantly launched and discussed.
We discuss climate change, biodiversity, and energy transition in a public space shaped by algorithms whose priority is not truth, but engagement. However, these issues require long-term analysis, while the digital environment thrives on immediate reaction. This is not just about communication—I am referring to the very process of opinion formation, and I am addressing primarily the environment of “networks,” without going into detail here about the intentional strategy of those who control digital infrastructures or the economic interests that shape algorithms.
It is in this context that I propose the concept of DESG — Digital, Environmental, Social, and Governance. The “D” I add is intended to be structural — it calls for the sustainability of the digital space as a healthy knowledge ecosystem, protected from organized misinformation and artificial polarization, promoting trust in scientific evidence and aware of the fragilities of the “attention economy.”
Algorithmic governance, informational responsibility, and digital integrity metrics are just some of the cornerstones around which the concept should become operational—it is a preliminary layer that can guide navigation in the ocean of information.
When I enter the sea with my diving suit, I can rarely see the bottom from the surface or perceive currents, marine life, dangers, or colors. But as I dive deeper and the absolute pressure increases, everything becomes clearer and more understandable, with method, time, and respect for the environment to be explored.
Science works the same way. Climate models, ecological chains, or ocean dynamics cannot be reduced to simple phrases; they are rather the result of data accumulation, hypothesis testing, and continuous validation.
The contrast with the dominant digital environment is evident—the experience of constant scrolling conveys a sense of being up to date, but does not promote deeper understanding, as speed tends to replace reflection. It is impossible to manage complex systems if public debate favors instant answers to questions that require time and deliberation.
In this context, academia plays a role that goes far beyond specialized research. It represents a space where doubt is not a sign of weakness, but part of the process, and where disagreement is methodological rather than tribal. Universities and Business Schools maintain criteria that do not depend on popularity or presuppose quick results – and in subjects such as climate, biodiversity, social consultation, or the sociology of organizations, these criteria are vital.
Academic freedom is not an abstraction; it is a sine qua non condition for knowledge and the results that science constantly proposes as truths.
Talking about digital sustainability does not mean limiting the debate, but rather reinforcing scientific literacy and recognizing that digital architecture influences real opinions and decisions, whose quality and accuracy are based on the robustness of the knowledge used. When misinformation circulates more intensely than evidence, the result is not pluralism; it is confusion. And confusion is not neutral.
In natural systems, as well as in social systems, delays and errors in action accumulate. Nature and people’s lives do not react to opinions, but to CO₂ concentrations, changes in average temperature, deforestation rates, and ocean acidification.
Academia has a responsibility to ensure the context of information and debate—online and offline. It is the foremost institution (that brilliant fiction on which the success of nations depends, as is well known) responsible for defending knowledge and the methodology of knowledge formation.
Academia must lead a new digital epistemology. Porto Business School, as an institution committed to strategic reflection and training leaders, can and must participate in this construction.
If sustainability means intergenerational responsibility, then it also means preserving the institutions that allow us to distinguish evidence from narrative – protecting forests and oceans is essential; protecting the mechanisms of knowledge production is equally essential.
Between the surface and the depths there is a choice—the former satisfies immediate curiosity, but the latter, which requires discipline and method, allows us to read reality and intervene in it in a sustainable way. Sustainability, which implies the responsible management of complex systems over time, is not built on the surface.
There are no sustainable futures without knowledge—the challenge is to recover depth.
