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In an era where sustainability and digital transformation are becoming indispensable pillars of successful business operations, this chapter explores the potent synergy between these two paradigms. As businesses strive to align their operations with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals, digital transformation emerges as a powerful enabler. This chapter delves into how digital technologies are not only revolutionizing traditional business models but are also paving the way toward more sustainable practices. From data-driven decision-making to improved resource management, this chapter discusses the diverse ways in which digital transformation contributes to sustainability. It also offers an in-depth analysis of real-world case studies, illustrating how businesses have successfully integrated digital transformation in their pursuit of sustainability. Recognizing the potential roadblocks, this chapter also addresses the challenges businesses may face in this journey, including cybersecurity risks, data privacy issues, and the need for technological literacy. It further presents strategies to navigate these challenges and underscores the importance of preparedness in managing potential risks. Finally, this chapter ventures into the future of digital transformation, evaluating current trends and predictions, and their potential impact on sustainable business practices.

In a world where big data have become crucial to guarantee the success of companies, digital transformation came to help companies transition towards a digital business and accept the changes in the organizational structure as well as the market. Nonetheless, even with the ever-growing importance shed on it, few articles and studies have linked it to the sustainability paradigm. Empirical studies that have linked between the factors of digital transformation and a more sustainable business are still scant. Many efforts are still needed to reduce the knowledge gap between these two concepts. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by examining (empirically) the effect of digital transformation on sustainability.

The study validates five different hypotheses highlighted by the literature using structural equation model (SEM) analysis from partial least square (PLS) approach. It uses a new conceptual framework using a survey data, answered by 41 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Morocco from different industries.

Using PLS-SEM modeling, the results show that customers, data and innovation, which are drivers that companies should work on during a digital transformation, have a significant impact on companies’ quest to reach sustainability. However, and in contrast to the existing literature, authors find that competition did not play a significant role in enhancing the companies’ commitment to sustainability.

Authors’ findings encourage firms to seize the opportunity of digital transformation to embrace sustainability, because the implementation of these two concepts requires radical changes at the business model level. Authors suggest that the road to achieve sustainability in a digital era should focus on three main axes, enhancing the customer experience and adopting customer centricity, building data analytics capabilities and shifting innovation to the business model level.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first research papers that explain how to reach sustainability during a digital transformation. The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it focuses on SMEs as they remain the backbone of the Moroccan economy. This study is also novel for showing with empirical evidences that working on the axes of customers, data and innovation, during a digital transformation journey, will improve sustainable practices within businesses.

This paper aims to summarize previous research findings on the mutual relation between digital transformation and sustainability at a firm-level. Up to date, there is a gap in the literature linking both concepts and a generalized call for more studies.

This research uses a systematic literature review of 89 published studies. After detailed content analysis filters, the authors used 75. The authors present the results following the “Six W” guidelines for systematic literature reviews.

Findings reveal that it is possible to suggest a research framework that considers digital transformation as a driver and a predecessor of sustainability. To survive the digital revolution, companies need to enhance their digital capabilities and balance their economic, environmental and social impacts.

The precision of the equation used to search manuscripts might have excluded some critical studies that analyze both topics with different connotations beyond merely “Digital transformation” and “Sustainability.” Moreover, the heterogeneity of the findings makes it difficult to classify the findings in a specific context.

The present paper serves as a base to understand the implications of digital transformation on sustainable development for businesses and societies.

How to respond to social and environmental concerns while pursuing economic goals remained a dilemma for today’s businesses. Besides, the digital revolution has profoundly changed people's lifestyles, turning out the challenge of how to present products and services to the new generations of consumers through emerging digital channels. To overcome these challenges, a business needs to rely on its internal capabilities but must make them dynamic and modify them, when necessary, in response to or anticipation of external changes. This study aims to propose a model for business model innovation (BMI) with the goal of pursuing sustainability and adapting to the changes of the digital age pursuing dynamic capabilities principles.

This study followed a mixed-method design, using meta-synthesis in its first phase (qualitative) and interpretive structural modelling in its second phase (quantitative).

The proposed model consists of four layers including approach, aspect, dimension and component. Based on quantitative results, the 16 dimensions were categorised in four main levels of “sustainable computing”, “sustainable execution”, “sustainable engagement” and “sustainable results”. Considering sustainability and digital transformation as main change drivers for contemporary businesses, this paper proposes a novel framework in the field of BMI.

The results of this study suggest that BMI requires not only proper business design based on social and environmental sustainability and digital transformation requirements but also attention to a new component called sustainable engagement, which represents the need for engaging with social and environmental issues in addition to customers.

The study aims to identify the central paradoxical tensions existing in developing resilience in organisations. The main thrust of this study is to develop a thorough understanding of diverse conflicting tensions in building resilience and develop the possible strategies to surmount these tensions.

Using the case study approach, the study applied theory-elaboration strategy as this study is based on well-established literature from both digitalisation and resilience. The study uses the paradox theory lens in a case study to reconcile both theories with contextual idiosyncrasies.

The paradox theory lens provides perspectives to understand tensions during resilience development and the role of digital transformation in this process. It assesses the potential solutions for surmounting tensions in resilient operations. The mapping of workable solutions with different paradoxes and propositions has been proposed for future empirical research.

The study suggests that practitioners should not consider resilience and sustainability as mutually exclusive; instead, managers must embrace ongoing tensions to bring solutions to address these two essential organisational priorities.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical study that applies paradox theory to understand how an organisation can build resilience while confronting several paradoxes. The study findings support that resilience practices can move in tandem with environmental sustainability goals rather than being usually mutually exclusive.

Recently, a new concept “digital sustainability” has emerged concerning the sustainability of businesses. Digital sustainability in the business world is related to the existence of businesses that are compatible with rapidly developing technologies. Digital sustainability depends on the ability to businesses to adapt digitally to business environment and successfully transform their internal processes by digitizing their managerial processes. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the deficiencies, glitches, gaps, and weaknesses in various internal and external organizational systems and digital mechanisms of enterprises have become more visible. This section reveals how important digital technologies are for adding social and environmental value to sustainable businesses. Besides, this section discusses how digital business models affect sustainability. For this purpose, in this section, sustainable business models and the sustainable business model components of digital technologies are discussed from a corporate perspective.

In this section, respectively, digitalization and digitalization in businesses under the light of sustainability, and digital sustainability in businesses are discussed. Then, basic concepts of digital sustainability in businesses, the relationship between digital sustainability and e-commerce, the positive impacts of digital sustainability on businesses, digital sustainability by countries and digital sustainability in various sectors are discussed accordingly. Many of the businesses with sustainable business models and strategies use digital technologies to design innovative business models and to provide a relatively unique competitive advantage among their rivals. Thus, by optimizing at every digital stage of business, companies can achieve digital sustainability. Companies could add unique value that cannot be imitated from any other businesses by only maintaining digital sustainability.

Many firms are now pursuing large-scale change initiatives to accelerate their digital transformation (DT) and sustainable development. However, the success rate of DT projects is still low, and the extent to which DT enables firms to improve environmental sustainability (ES) remains unclear. Recently, researchers have argued that DT is more about people transformation rather than technology. Based on the contingent resource-based view, this study investigates how DT influences ES and examines the moderating role of training provision (TP).

Survey data gathered from manufacturers in China were analysed to test the proposed theoretical framework.

The results indicate that DT has a positive impact on ES, and that this effect is positively moderated by TP.

The empirical findings provide insights for managers to understand the success of digital sustainability transformation requires necessary digital knowledge and skills derived from TP.

This study provides an initial examination of digital sustainability, which is a new stream of literature for the digital age, and further extends existing knowledge by demonstrating the importance of people (i.e. TP) in strengthening the effectiveness of DT on ES.

This study proposes an innovative concept of green digital transformation capability (GDTC) and explores the interrelationships among GDTC, ambidextrous green learning (AGL) and sustainability performance (SP) from multiple perspectives.

Survey questionnaires were distributed to Taiwanese firms engaged in various sectors, including electrical and information, metal and precision machinery, rubber material, chemical, daily necessity and food and beverage manufacturing, resulting in 306 valid responses. Structural equation modeling in SPSS v26 was used to test the hypotheses. Furthermore, we analyzed the mediating effects using SPSS PROCESS.

The results demonstrated that GDTC affected SP both directly and indirectly through exploratory and exploitative green learning. Furthermore, this study revealed the pathways through which GDTC influenced the SP of Taiwanese manufacturing firms.

This study is limited to Taiwanese manufacturing firms. Future studies should expand their sample size to explore digital transformation (DT) practices in various regions and industries.

The DTs in manufacturing have profound social implications, emphasizing that companies should consider economic, social and environmental sustainability during digitalization.

This study introduces a novel concept of GDTC and provides important theoretical insights and practical implications for the intersection of DT and sustainability perspective. These findings will offer valuable guidance to companies seeking sustainable development in the digital era.

Artificial intelligence and augmented reality are two key tools gaining importance in the digital era due to their wide range of applications in different fields and sectors. Industry 4.0 lays emphasis principally on the technology used to help the business remain competitive and sustainable. Sustainable development goals are another important objective of the UN which has laid responsibility for every business to support addressing the global challenges. Purpose: This chapter essentially aims to present the standpoint of artificial intelligence and augmented reality in meeting the sustainability perspective of organizations. Information about the study is gathered through secondary approaches, critically reviewing published literature, scientific reports, and statistical data accessible through business reports, and corporate websites. Further analyzed to present the perspectives of the authors in the study. Globally artificial intelligence market size is predicted to reach $190 billion by 2025, while the funding for startups doubled during the period 2011–2020 globally. The investment in artificial intelligence is going to reach $500 by 2024 resulting in substantial revenue returns. The augmented reality market size could reach $97 billion by 2028. Artificial intelligence today is increasingly used in many fields and is attracting multiple applications in many sectors such as manufacturing, retail, education, IT, and health care and has also contributed to sustainable development the same time by providing energy conservation options, optimization, and reduction of resources, minimizing wastage, offering timely assistance on maintenance schedules, practices which are enabling organizations to reach closer to sustainability and transformation.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which globally affected all the countries of the world both economically and socially, has become one of the biggest crises after the 1929 world economic depression. During this period, not only people's health but also the economic health of countries was affected. In this process, people have created intense connection traffic on the internet to meet their needs, and this has accelerated the digitalization processes of businesses. Thus, the concept of digital transformation began to be widely used. Today, digital transformation processes have become an external environmental variable that covers all sectors, not businesses in a single sector. This situation has revealed the necessity of creating new business/management strategies that increase customer value for business managers. Digital transformation has shown itself in all business functions. In other words, the demands and priorities of each function and its managers have also changed. Therefore, business and department managers are required that they perceive digital transformation processes correctly and integrate their businesses/departments into this process with the right business/management strategies, without conflicting with the digital transformation processes. In this study, various ideas and evaluations put forward about sustainable business/management strategies that can be applied against the current and future importance of the digitalization/digital transformation process and its possible effects on businesses are included.