Emerging Technology Networks Enabling SDG Constellations

Digital technologies are increasingly mobilized to address sustainability challenges, yet most studies still examine single technologies and single Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in isolation. This paper conceptualizes technology-enabled sustainability as a complex adaptive innovation system and investigates how emerging technologies form networked constellations around SDGs and SDG targets. Building on a repository of 9,387 emerging practices with explicit SDG implications, we construct macro-level networks linking 11 technological areas to the 17 SDGs and micro-level networks linking specific technologies to SDG targets. Co-occurrence analysis is complemented by social network analysis to identify central technologies, focal sustainability goals, and context-specific variation across sectors, business functions, and business impacts. The findings show a dense but uneven structure centred on SDGs 9, 12, 3 and 7, enabled by a technological core comprising artificial intelligence, IoT/5G networks, computing, and digital applications. Micro-level results reveal a finer-grained constellation around resource efficiency, clean technologies, health services, renewable energy, climate-related and urban-environmental targets. The paper contributes to continuous innovation theory by shifting attention from isolated technological adoption to adaptive portfolios that reconfigure across sustainability contexts.