A View from the ACTS Programme

Frank Wilson: Interaction Design Ltd, 13 Stonehills House, Welwyn Garden City, Herts AL8 6NH, UK. Tel: +44 1707 338 751 Fax: +44 1707 373 901 E-mail: [email protected] Hill Stewart: Italtel Central Research Laboratories Castelletto di Settimo Milanese, 20019, Italy. Tel: +39 02 4388 8030 Fax: +39 02 3351 0146 E-mail: [email protected] Advanced communications technology and services (ACTS) provide the platform whereby the business, political, administrative and social communities communicate, organise and transact all of the important relationships and exchanges which form the socioecomonic life of our planet. The increasing concern with sustainability of physical, social and business resources as a basis for continued development at a global scale identifies a number of concerns which implicate advanced telecommunications technologies and services as a key determinant of sustainability ‘best practice’. This paper attempts to summarise the current sustainable-development debate and to position recent developments in the ACTS programme of CEC DG13 as exemplars of positive responses to need—both in terms of demonstrations of current good practice and guidelines for future practice. Introduction