Chapter two provides a framework for anticipatory LCA, identifies where research from multiple disciplines informs LCA practice, and builds off the recommendations presented in the preceding chapter. Chapter two focuses on crystalline and thin film photovoltaics (PV) to illustrate the novel framework, in part because PV is an environmentally motivated technology undergoing extensive R&D efforts and rapid increases in scale of deployment. The chapter concludes with a series of research recommendations that seek to direct PV research agenda towards pathways with the greatest potential for environmental improvement.
Similar to PV, engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are an emerging technology with numerous potential applications, are the subject of active R&D efforts, and are characterized by high uncertainty regarding potential environmental implications. Chapter three introduces a Monte Carlo impact assessment tool based on the toxicity impact assessment model USEtox and demonstrates stochastic characterization factor (CF) development to prioritize risk research with the greatest potential to improve certainty in CFs. The case study explores a hypothetical decision in which personal care product developers are interested in replacing the conventional antioxidant niacinamide with the novel ENM C60, but face high data uncertainty, are unsure regarding potential ecotoxicity impacts associated with this substitution, and do not know what future risk-relevant experiments to invest in that most efficiently improve certainty in the comparison. Results suggest experiments that elucidate C60 partitioning to suspended solids should be prioritized over parameters with little influence on results. This dissertation demonstrates a novel anticipatory approach to exploration of uncertainty in environmental models that can create new, actionable knowledge with potential to guide future research and development decisions.
Three dilemmas plague governance of scientific research and technological
innovation: the dilemma of orientation, the dilemma of legitimacy, and the dilemma of control. The dilemma of orientation risks innovation heedless of long-term implications. The dilemma of legitimacy grapples with delegation of authority in democracies, often at the expense of broader public interest. The dilemma of control poses that the undesirable implications of new technologies are hard to grasp, yet once grasped, all too difficult to remedy. That humanity has innovated itself into the sustainability crisis is a prime manifestation of these dilemmas.
Responsible innovation (RI), with foci on anticipation, inclusion, reflection, coordination, and adaptation, aims to mitigate dilemmas of orientation, legitimacy, and control. The aspiration of RI is to bend the processes of technology development toward more just, sustainable, and societally desirable outcomes. Despite the potential for fruitful interaction across RI’s constitutive domains—sustainability science and social studies of science and technology—most sustainability scientists under-theorize the sociopolitical dimensions of technological systems and most science and technology scholars hesitate to take a normative, solutions-oriented stance. Efforts to advance RI, although notable, entail one-off projects that do not lend themselves to comparative analysis for learning.
In this dissertation, I offer an intervention research framework to aid systematic study of intentional programs of change to advance responsible innovation. Two empirical studies demonstrate the framework in application. An evaluation of Science Outside the Lab presents a program to help early-career scientists and engineers understand the complexities of science policy. An evaluation of a Community Engagement Workshop presents a program to help engineers better look beyond technology, listen to and learn from people, and empower communities. Each program is efficacious in helping scientists and engineers more thoughtfully engage with mediators of science and technology governance dilemmas: Science Outside the Lab in revealing the dilemmas of orientation and legitimacy; Community Engagement Workshop in offering reflexive and inclusive approaches to control. As part of a larger intervention research portfolio, these and other projects hold promise for aiding governance of science and technology through responsible innovation.
produced, and what lessons can be learned for improving the governance of AI in the future. I find that RRI-inspired methods have substantial potential in the context of AI, and early utility to the GPT-oriented perspective on what RRI in AI entails. Finally, I describe several areas for future work that would put RRI in AI on a sounder footing.
Chapter 2 discusses the historical management of US air pollution, why CO2 is regulated as an air pollutant, and how the current political framing of climate change as an air pollution problem promotes the use of market-based solutions to reduce emissions but ignores CO2 concentrations. Chapter 3 argues for the need to reframe climate change solutions to include reducing CO2 concentrations along with emissions. It presents the scientific reasoning and technological needs for reducing CO2 concentrations, why direct air capture (DAC) is the most effective NET to do so, and existing regulatory systems that can inform future CO2 removal policy. Chapter 4 explores whether Responsible Innovation (RI), a framework that includes society in the innovation process of emerging technologies, is effective for the ethical research and deployment of DAC; reveals the need for increased DAC governance strategies, and suggests how RI can be expanded to allow continued research of controversial emerging technologies in case of a climate change emergency. Overall, this dissertation argues that climate change must be reframed as a two-part problem: preventing new CO2 emissions and reducing concentrations, which demands increased investment in DAC research, development, and deployment. However, without a national or global governance strategy for DAC, it will remain difficult to include CO2 concentration reduction as an essential piece to the climate change solution.