Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland — March 2023

The March 2023 Remaking the Global Trading System for a Sustainable Future Workshop, undertaken in partnership with the Villars Institute, explored how the trading system might be harnessed to ensure the widest possible availability of digital opportunities to drive innovation and contribute to sustainable development while minimizing the potential environmental burdens and other downsides of Information Age tools and technologies. E-commerce and information technologies can reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) used in transportation, manufacturing, and agriculture. Digital technologies can also facilitate regulation and international cooperation in setting and enforcing environmental and other sustainability standards. Sustainability might also be advanced by the use of artificial intelligence or blockchain to monitor and certify GHG emissions or other environmental attributes of goods or services moving in commerce. In developing nations, digital technologies can promote sustainable development by providing technology and capital to enable production of cutting-edge goods and services, promoting dissemination of best practices, and by facilitating telecommuting to higher-pay jobs. However, data centers and some digital tools, especially blockchain when predicated on proof of work as opposed to proof of stake, have a significant carbon footprint themselves. And some digital technologies might undermine the advantages of developing nations. Maximizing these benefits and minimizing the risks and burdens can only be fully achieved through an integrated approach to digital trade liberalization with collaborative efforts to promote appropriate regulation of privacy, cybersecurity, content moderation, and competition.