The new silk road and its potential for sustainable development: how open digital participation could make BRI a role model for sustainable businesses and markets

Abstract

China’s New Silk Road (aka Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)) will invest a 1 trillion USD budget across Asia, Africa and Europe. As BRI wants to contribute also to sustainable development, the authors argue that only open digital participation of all citizens, corporations and governments and the collective intelligence, collaborative innovation and co-creation will make BRI a global role model for sustainability. For a highly networked, globalized, complex and digitalized world with limited resources the key ingredients for sustainable success are the following 10Cs: co-thinking, coworking, co-learning, co-creation, combinatorial innovation, co-ownership, coordination, co-operation, co-evolution, and collective intelligence. By linking BRI with digital infrastructures and corporate data management systems, a coordinated but distributed effort may be achieved with positive effects on social responsibility and sustainability for supply chains,