Digital Twins for Sustainable Development: Silver Bullet or Silicon Cage?

Digital twins are computer-generated replicas that simulate complex systems based on continuous, bidirectional, and potentially multimodal data flow between the virtual and physical. As digital twins enable the analysis of the full lifecycle of entities, processes, and organizations, they are increasingly employed to advance sustainable development. Digital twins can improve the monitoring and measurement of natural resources, their efficient use, and their effective protection. But there are also risks involved. They may intensify surveillance, normalize technocratic control, and narrow interpretive horizons. Employing illustrative cases of their use, we assess the benefits of digital twins for sustainable development. In turn, we expose prominent risks and place them in a theoretical framework. While the technology promises more comprehensive accountability, improved efficiency, and heightened predictive capacity, it may also imprison the analog—individuals, organizations, and the natural world—in digital dictates and conformities. The challenge that we address is how sustainable development can be advanced by digital twin technology without degrading the capacities and complexities of people and planet.