Security and Privacy for a Sustainable Internet of Things

There has been an exponential growth of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and their applications in a variety of "smart" services ranging from precision health, smart cities and industry 4.0. Recently, there have been substantial efforts by both industry and academia in applying IoT for sustainability; for example, IoT enabled smart cities to reduce energy and water consumption, IoT-enabled waste management. However, little or no attention has been paid to the impacts of these IoT devices on overall sustainability efforts. In this article, we first introduce the concept of "sustainable IoT". We then analyse the sustainability of IoT from two different angles - circular economy and cybersecurity - to contextualise the current state of affairs and highlight the challenges ahead.