Jan Bieser is an assistant professor of digitalization and sustainability and head of the Data and Infrastructure Group. In his research, he investigates the opportunities and risks of digitization for society and the environment. He teaches several modules on “Digitalization & Sustainability” and “Digital Responsibility and Sustainability” at the bachelor and master level for sustainability and (business) informatics students.
Before joining BFH, Jan Bieser researched and taught as a senior researcher, PostDoc, and PhD student on digitalization and sustainable development at the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, the Department of Informatics at the University of Zurich, and the Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. As a fellow of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Cities of Tomorrow, Jan Bieser worked with representatives of cities, the private sector, and international organizations to explore how digital technologies can make cities more sustainable and equitable. He led various research collaborations on the environmental impacts of digital technologies in cooperation with industrial companies, associations, and NGOs. Previously, he was a sustainability manager at the University of Zurich, where he was the lead author of the first sustainability report, and an IT and sustainability consultant at IBM and Deutsche Telekom.
In his research, he focuses on the assessment of indirect environmental effects of digital technologies, exploring how innovative digital applications can support environmental protection. He just published an article with other NDE researchers on the GHG enablement reporting of telecommunication companies, the claimed positive impacts of telco’s services on greenhouse gas reductions. The research team critically reviewed telecommunication companies' GHG enablement calculations and showed that they create a flawed narrative due to several methodological shortcomings. Most importantly, they focus exclusively on those services likely to yield GHG reductions, neglecting possible GHG-increasing services. The article provides eight concrete recommendations to enhance the accuracy and comprehensiveness of GHG enablement assessments, ensuring they provide a reliable decision basis for stakeholders.
He also conducted a large project on the impact of digitalization on individual time allocation and sustainable lifestyles. He developed a new assessment approach based on the relationship between ICT use, individual time use patterns, and environmental impacts and demonstrated it in a co-working living lab hosted at KTH Stockholm in the scope of the Mistra SAMS project on Sustainable Accessibility and Mobility services. The approach is very suitable to simultaneously investigate the environmental and social effects of digital technologies. This is because individual lifestyles are not only a major driver of environmental impacts and well-being but are also affected by ICT applications, which modify the time and space constraints of activities.
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