The future is digital & sustainable. A conversation with Ines Vanlangendonck about the twin transition

Who is Ines Vanlangendonck?

Ines Vanlangendonck is a Brussels-based technologist, entrepreneur, and systems thinker. In 2020, she founded Kamon, a studio for digitizing the circular economy. With a Sustainability Leadership certificate from Cambridge University, Ines devises digital solutions for sustainable services and business processes. She is a board member of the classical orchestra Anima Eterna, was a digital advisor for crisis management at Cultuurloket.be, and regularly shares her digital expertise with the cultural sector.

At DEN, we believe in an interplay between sustainability and digitalization for the future of the cultural sector; the twin transition. What does this transition mean to you?

“Twin transition means to me that as an organization or company, you bring about innovation with the goal of advancing the world in terms of sustainability, using digitization as a tool. That digitization, in turn, must also be as sustainable as possible, so that you don’t replace one problem with another.

And that perfectly sums up what digitization and technology always are; they are a means to achieve something. Never an end in itself.

Will technology save the world?

“In an ethical and sustainable world, digital innovation serves people, society, and the environment. No, technology alone and accelerated digitization will not save us. But every solution that is sustainable can, thanks to technology, become better, faster, more accessible, safer, and more scalable.“

Could you talk about the boundlessness we’ve become accustomed to?

“At some point, we chose to change reusable materials into disposable ones, making a constant stream of production and transport a necessity. We grew up with a sense of boundlessness, even online. So far, the internet keeps getting faster and bigger. New equipment lasts shorter and shorter. But we are depleting the earth and will have to change our behavior. Impose limits on ourselves.”

How do limitations then encourage finding solutions?

“The fun thing is that people become more creative in a confined or challenging reality. Think of the early days of the Covid lockdowns in Belgium: people started thinking incredibly creatively very quickly.

There were enormous limitations on what was still possible, yet some managed to come up with the most creative solutions precisely in that situation. Some of those innovations were so good that they continued with them even when it was 'no longer necessary.' The KVS theater in Brussels suddenly came up with performances in public spaces, the Hannah Arendt Institute created an online training offering, a designer clothing store cleverly used Instagram to start their online sales easily and immediately, and the citizen collective I volunteered for helped families and funeral homes to stream funerals.

There is undoubtedly a psychological analysis of this phenomenon, but people become more creative in a confined or challenging reality and unhappy in a boundless world of abundance.”

Also listen to the podcast with Ines about the Twin Transition: Digital and sustainability hand in hand || Enter Digital