The metrics of sustainability would have to evolve in the AI high ‘Future of Work’ era era, which incorporates job losses due to automation and robots/advanced machinery doing shop floor work, and accompanying further disruption by 3D printing and big data. The core anchors are then social inclusion and diversity and how these values can be baked in to systems in an era where de globalisation is again on the radar for manufacturing firms.
In an era of projectised freelance work, social protection in the globally Distributed Work paradigm is treated as a cost centre by firms hence the so called sharing economy is feted by the neoliberal establishment. Such evolving relationships are changing the way sustainability can be relevant to firms. In order to reimagine, sustainability practitioners have to step back and develop a baseline with power mapping done with regulatory triggers, to develop a blueprint which maps issues versus responses for the sector they are in; in the post Uber era, tech sector needs a standard for diversity and gender protection with legal safeguards.
In an automation era, how would EHS evolve with the times? More sensors, means more data, but is more data adding up to a psychologically secure workplace?
How these silver bullets are framed as solutions in relevant application contexts, shall enable sustainability to reboot away from the rhetoric of performance to true potential being unlocked.
