ENVIRONMENTAL

SUSTAINABILITY

ENABLING

INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Evers, Jorne Mathijs, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB Tilburg, NL,

j.m.evers@tilburguniversity.edu

Course: Bachelor Thesis Information Management

Academic Year: 2012-2013

Topic: Green IT

Author: J.M. Evers

ANR: 990774

Supervisor: H. Weigand

Word Count: 5796 words

Abstract

The focus in this paper is on how information systems can enable environmental sustainability within

and beyond their enterprise from a managerial perspective. Answers will be given on how to design

information systems in order to improve businesses environmental sustainability. The focus will be on

how these Information Management Systems could increase the awareness and control of ecological

aspects of doing business, such as energy consumption, waste streams and Co2 emissions.

In addition this paper tries to create insight on the different ways IT supports the overall

sustainability strategy of a business and what kind of innovation in IT and business processes is

needed to accomplish the implementation of such a strategy. Therefore this paper will highlight IT-

frameworks, Decision Support Systems and IT assessing and improvement frameworks that takes

environmental sustainability of a whole business into account.

Keywords: IT for Green, Sustainable ICT,

Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................... 2

1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 4

1.1 Research questions ............................................................................................... 4 1.1 Research Design ................................................................................................... 4 1.2 Structure of this Thesis ......................................................................................... 5

2 GREEN INFORMATION SYSTEMS ........................................................................... 5

2.1 Environmental Sustainability Strategy ................................................................. 5

3 IT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORKS FOR SUSTAINABLE INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY ............................................................................................................. 6

3.1 IT Management Frameworks ............................................................................... 6 3.2 CobiT .................................................................................................................... 7 3.3 PRINCE2 .............................................................................................................. 8 3.4 Evaluation of environmental sustainability enabling IT frameworks ................... 9

4 ENABLING ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABLE CHOICES WITH DECISION

SUPPORT SYSTEMS .................................................................................................... 9

4.1 DSS for Sustainable Development ....................................................................... 9 4.2 Examples of environmental sustainability enabling DSS ................................... 10 4.3 Evaluating DSS for environmental sustainability .............................................. 11

5 IMPROVEMENT OF SUSTAINABLE ICT WITHIN ORGANIZATIONS .............. 11

5.1 G-readiness framework ...................................................................................... 12 5.2 SICT- Capability Maturity Framework .............................................................. 13 5.3 Evaluating the SICT-Capability Maturity framework ........................................ 13

6 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 14

6.1 IT management frameworks for Sustainable Information Technology .............. 14 6.2 SICT enabling Decision Supporting System ...................................................... 14 6.3 Frameworks that access and improve SICT ....................................................... 14 6.4 Final Recommendation ....................................................................................... 14

7 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 15

1 Introduction

The idea that business activities could simultaneously deliver financial, ecological and social benefits

was introduced in the early 90s and coined as Triple Bottom Line (TBL). This included gaining

environmental benefits by reducing energy consumption, CO2 emotion and waste streams (Henriques

2010). This paper tries to explain how IT can be used in businesses in order to benefits businesses

ecological objectives derived from a corporate responsibility point of view.

There are different possibilities of using Information Systems for improving environmental

sustainably within businesses. In general there are two major topics within this field related to

Information Technology. The first major topic is about energy reduction of IT solutions. Within this

field, the IT system consumes energy to drive the company’s technology solutions. Environmental

sustainability is increased through the use of Green IT solutions which decrease the environmental

impact of businesses in their IT infrastructure.

A second approach aims to reducing energy consumption, waste production and CO2 emission with

the use of IT. This reduction is enabled through the optimization of manufacturing, establishing green

processes in organizations and reducing the usage of resources within business processes. (Pernici

2012) For example: teleconferencing reduces the traveling of employees and therefore have an impact

on the consumption of fuel and CO2 emissions. This thesis scope is on this second form of improving

environmental sustainability through the use of IS within and beyond enterprises. It focuses on the

managerial tools that could be used in order to increase environmental sustainability of organizations

with the usage of IT solutions.

.

1.1 Research questions

This thesis aims to provide an answer to the following problem statement:

“How can, from a managerial point of view, information system engineering enable environmental

sustainability within and beyond enterprises?”

The following research questions are derived from the problem statement and are discussed in the

following chapters of this thesis:

What is Green Information Technology?

How can environmental sustainability within enterprises be increased using IT

management frameworks?

How can overall environmental sustainability strategies in Decision Support Systems

be embedded?

How can sustainable ICT within enterprises be assessed and improved?

1.1 Research Design

The research is based on descriptive research and makes use of literature review in order to collect the

necessary data. The literature is obtained through numerous sources like Journals (e.g. MIS Quarterly)

and business resources (e.g. Accenture and Gartner) Articles from well-known journals are used in

order to guarantee the quality of this research. These articles are selected based on content, journal of

publication and the times that the article is used as a reference by other authors. Keywords that are

used to find articles and literature are: “Green IT”, “Sustainable Information Technology”.

1.2 Structure of this Thesis

The following chapters in this thesis aim to give an appropriate answer to the problem statement.

Chapter two discusses Green Information systems and Environmental sustainability strategies within

businesses. The third chapter explains how IT frameworks can be adjusted and used in order to design

Sustainable Information Technologies. The fourth chapter discusses the usage of Decision Supporting

Systems and how these can have a positive influence on businesses’ overall environmental

sustainability. In chapter five a framework is discussed which asses the maturity of Sustainable

Information and Communication Technology (SICT) within organizations. The final chapter gives a

conclusion about how information system engineering can enable environmental sustainability within

and beyond enterprises, from a managerial perspective.

2 Green Information Systems

This chapter aims to find an answer on what Green Information Systems are and what supports the

need for green information system within enterprises.

Green IT can be viewed from different perspectives by different people. In order to form a proper

definition and understand about Green IT, literature aimed at the area of environmental sustainability

standards, corporate environmental strategies and emerging practitioner oriented Green IT is studied.

From the supply chain point of view, Green IT should be integrated into the different business

processes such as product design and life-cycle, product management, sourcing, manufacturing,

warehousing and distribution. By integrating Green IT in these processes, the management of an

organization is able to monitor, control and enhance the supply chain in terms of ecological value

(Srivastava 2007). On the other hand, Green IT is seen as an environmental sustainability criterion

for the design, production, sourcing and disposal of the IT infrastructure by itself. As mentioned

before, the subject of this paper isn’t about this form of Green IT. Green IT can also include the

human and managerial factor in relation to the IT infrastructure. These factors are both used in order

to reduce different kinds of environmental threats such as energy consumption, emissions, and the

creation of waste within business processes and supply chains (CFO 2009).

2.1 Environmental Sustainability Strategy

An organizational wide strategy in the area of environmental sustainability should be the base for an

implementation of Green IT within organizations. The underlying reason to base an implementation

on an enterprise-wide strategy is that environmental sustainability is an enterprise-wide issue that

spans the full value chain and supply chain of a business.

A well-defined environmental sustainability strategy will provide both the business side and IT

department with clear ecological objectives. This allows the IT department of an organization to

implement information systems that are in accordance with the overall sustainability strategy of the

organization. This is a point of importance, because a lack of integration between ecological

objectives that are derived from the strategy on the terrain of environmental sustainability will hinder

the transformation of business operations towards a sustainable organization (Korte 2012).

In general business-strategies are derived from companies’ economical goals to stay competitive in

the market where they are operating. Therefore, a sustainability strategy should only be implemented

in an organization when such a strategy increases the competitive advantage of the organization.

There are two basic types of sustainability strategies that are implied by gaining competitive

advantages. First the market-driven sustainability strategy is designed to provide firms with

competitive advantages by environmentally differentiating their products and/or market from their

competitors. Secondly there is the process-driven sustainability strategy. This strategy is designed to

provide firms with competitive advantages by reducing costs through improvement of the

environmental efficiency of their production process (Edward 1995). This thesis will discuss how

Information System engineering can enable environmental sustainability within enterprises.

Therefore, the focus is on process-driven sustainability strategy. Further references in this thesis to

environmental sustainability strategies enclose the process-driven strategy.

3 IT management frameworks for Sustainable Information Technology

Frameworks that were developed on the terrain of management of information technologies are

fundamental tools that are used by CIO’s and various IT professionals for managing resources and

services in the area of IT.

Examples of frameworks that are widely used in IT management are CobiT and PRINCE2. In general

these frameworks were initially developed with a focus on profit gains and did not take environmental

sustainability into account. Therefore CIOs and IT-managers miss the opportunities to improve the

environmental sustainability of their business (Korte 2012). However, as discussed in chapter one,

environmental sustainability strategies of businesses need to influence an entire business towards a

more environmentally friendlier organization but should be derived from the business needs to

increases there competitive advantage within their market.

Due to the fact that most business operations make use of IT solutions, the IT human and managerial

capabilities are of great importance in order to meet environmental sustainability objectives (Nunn

2007). Therefore, embedding environmental sustainability into IT management frameworks will

ultimately lead to more sustainable business operations. This raises the question on “How

environmental sustainability within organizations can be increased making use of IT management

frameworks?”

3.1 IT Management Frameworks

Before discussing how to embed environmental sustainability objectives into IT management

frameworks, a better understanding of IT management frameworks is needed. Management

frameworks are structured, descriptive tools that provide standardization on the terrain of management

processes and sub-processes. IT Management frameworks can be divided into different abstraction

levels. For example, there are high-level frameworks that make use of best practices and there are

umbrella frameworks. These umbrella frameworks make use of other management tools and

descriptive approaches in order to describe specific processes.

A broad range of these different kinds of IT management frameworks are widely used in the field of

IT design and optimization because none of the individual frameworks cover all aspects of IT

management (Rozemeijer, 2007). In order to give an insight in how environmental sustainability can

be embedded into IT management frameworks, CobiT and PRINCE2 are discussed in this chapter.

3.2 CobiT

Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (CobiT) is an IT Management Framework

that provides best practices on how to structure processes and presenting business activities in a

logical and manageable way. The focus of CobiT is strongly on the control of business processes.

CobiT tries to measure when things go wrong (ITGI 2007) and aims to use Information Technology to

maximize the profit of the organization. In order to achieve maximum profit, CobiT focuses on what

is required instead of how to execute business process activities.

CobiT does not aim to achieve and implement measures that are based on gaining a more

environmental friendly way of doing business. However, CobiT itself does not have to undergo a

change in order to meet ecological objectives because users of CobiT can actively account

sustainability within the four steps of the CobiT Framework (Korte 2012). Therefore general business

objectives and strategies related to environmental sustainability are needed in order to support CobiT

practitioners to include ecological objectives in the framework.

Source: CobiT 4.1 Excerpt

Practitioners of CobiT should review several steps from the framework in order to implement

sustainable operations. For example the Plan and Organization component needs sustainability added

as a technological direction. On the terrain of risk management, the plan and organization activities

need some expansion so that these activities cover all different facets of environmental sustainability.

A way of realizing this expansion is by including the potential risk that a resource supplier makes use

of hazardous substances for the production of half fabrics, or by including the risk that the energy

provider reaches its supply limits. The inclusion of ecological risks in the Plan and Organization

phase of the CobiT framework will result to a more environmentally balanced planning and

organization of business processes

In Acquire and Implement (AI), procurement and operation enablement needs to be reviewed in order

to ensure that these are not only balanced in economical parameters but also in the ecological

parameters. This should include suppliers and contractors so that these are in line with the

environmental sustainability strategy of the business.

In the Monitor and Evaluation (ME) area of CobiT, component practitioners of CobiT need to ensure

compliance with internal and external requirements by assessing all the different needs and demands

of the stakeholder in order to make the business more sustainable in an ecological manner. Only if all

three components: PO, AI and ME of the CobiT framework are adjusted with ecological objectives

will this approach be able to achieve its full environmental sustainability potential (Korte 2012).

3.3 PRINCE2

PRINCE stands for Projects IN Controlled Environments and is a more commonly used management

framework than CobiT. The PRINCE2 framework describes a structured method for project

management for various kinds of projects (Wideman 2003). Because of this, the differences between

the Cobit and PRINCE2 frameworks is that PRINCE2 is not focused on projects within an IT

environment but has a more general perspective. PRINCE2 follows an approach that is neutral to the

resulting product and is therefore more focused on the progress of managing projects. Another

difference between PRINCE2 and CobiT is that PRINCE2 is more neutral to sustainability values,

however only the project input and organisational needs for environmental sustainability could

accommodate sustainability in this IT Management Framework.

Fig .2 PRINCE2 processes, components and techniques. Highlighted are those that require attention for environmental sustainability (Korte

2012).

PRINCE2 needs specific integration for ecological sustainability objectives. For example; the Control

and Plans (CP) components, including the underlying products, requires an integration of specific

control, values such as the amount of emission, for sustainability. Another component that needs to be

adjusted in order to improve the Information Technology towards a more ecological sustainable

business is Organization under Starting up a Project, because the method with which a project is

organized will have a major influence throughout the entire project (Korte 2012).

3.4 Evaluation of environmental sustainability enabling IT frameworks

Despite the differences between the IT-frameworks CobiT and PRICE2 both frameworks allows the

practitioners to insert ecological objectives. Furthermore IT-frameworks in general are fundamental

tools in the design and redesign of IT-components and whole IT-infrastructures of businesses.

Because there are frameworks that allow the inclusion of ecological objectives that can be derived

from business wide environmental sustainability strategies, the development of these IT systems

within businesses will be affected in such a way that they enable more environmentally sustainable

business processes.

4 Enabling environmental sustainable choices with Decision Support Systems

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are IT solutions that can be used during a decision making process

in order to provide organizations with the most suitable solution for complex problems. A classic DSS

tool is designed in such a way that it takes advantage of multiple resources in the form of databases.

These sophisticated databases comprise of internal and external data, information and knowledge.

DSS tools have powerful modeling functions and interfaces that enable reporting and graphing

functions in order to give insights in an enormous and complex pool of data (Shim

2002).Organizations, especially corporations and multinationals make use of DSS to manage their

businesses. Therefore Decision Support Systems have a great influence in the decision making

processes of organizational management layers and thus in the whole organization. The design of DSS

could influence the characteristics of an organization. In order to embed overall environmental

sustainability strategy within daily business processes, Decision Support Systems could influence the

decision making processes such that it is in accordance with the overall environmental sustainability

strategy. This raises the question on how to embed overall environmental sustainability strategies in

Decision Support Systems in order to influence decision making that is in line with the overall

strategies.

The adoption of sustainability strategies and ecological objectives by organizations necessitate data

regarding environmental impacts, such as energy consumption, CO2 emission and usage of resources

for the production of goods. On the other hand information about cause and effect could provide

organizations with insight, as well as sharing knowledge about what kind of actions work regarding

the sustainability agenda of an organization. (Melville 2010). All this decision supporting data could

influence the decision process of the management. Therefore, this data should be included in the

Decision Support Systems of businesses that have environmental friendly objectives so that the

decision processes within a businesses are influenced by the companies’ aim to become more

environmental sustainable.

4.1 DSS for Sustainable Development

Sustainable development (SD) of business processes and/or products could become a major problem

for managements, because sustainable development efforts facing complex predictable and

unpredictable outcomes within and beyond businesses. As mentioned in the previous paragraph DSS

could support the decision process in order to provide organizations with the most suitable solution

for complex problems. Because sustainable development within businesses generates complex

problems, DSS for Sustainable Development could support managers by the development of more

environmental sustainable business processes (Kersten 1999).

But what should be taken into consideration while designing a DSS for sustainable Development?

According to Gregory E. Kersten et. al, five factors should be taken into consideration while

designing a DSS for sustainable development.

The decision makers: Environmental Sustainability should be a share vision among all

stakeholders of a business. Therefore, “all stakeholders should proactively assume their

decision making responsibilities in taking charge of their fate” and make upright decisions.

The Decisions: environmental sustainable development within businesses should be driven by

a sustainable strategy of the business. As such, decision making in the sustainable

development of business processes and/or products should embrace all components of the

overall sustainability strategy of a business. This could include economical, social, political

and environmental components. After all, the decision should include components that

maximize the business productivity while assuring the long-term viability of natural resources

the business depends on.

DSS Modeling approach: Modeling a DSS for sustainable development requires a

considerable amount of ecological as well as economical information, comprehensive goal

formulation and business dependent knowledge. Modeling a DSS for sustainable development

also issues conflicting goals. For example: short term profit maximizations versus long-term

cost reduction due to a decrease in energy consumption of a business. In order to overcome

conflicting business goals different possible techniques of DSS modeling are possible. Such

as: full cost accounting of environmental impacts, simulating and forecasting methods and

multiple objective optimization (best of both).

Data requirements: As mentioned before DSS consist of sophisticated databases with external

and internal (business) information. This high quality data is required for the modeling

process within de DSS. In order to design a DSS for sustainable development data concerning

the environment, such as energy consumption and CO2 emission should be include.

Visualization and interface requirements: The decision algorithms of a certain DSS should be

transparent for the decision maker in order to increase the transparency of the system. The

graphic interfaces of a DSS should be designed in such a way that the user can easily navigate

through the “problem”. This design should includes time, space, decision variables and

perspective.

4.2 Examples of environmental sustainability enabling DSS

In order to improve environmental risk management and therefore the organization’s environmental

sustainability, Chevron developed a Decision Support System (DSS) to systematize cost-benefits

analysis. This DSS used financial as well as environmental data such as waste streams, energy

consumption and CO2 emission in order to support the decision making processes of the management

of Chevron Corp (Reinhardt et al. 1999).

Another example on how DSS could positively influence decision making in an environmental

conscious way is the DSS developed by Humphreys. He integrated environmental criteria into the

supplier’s selection process by estimating waste disposal, energy consumption and recycling policy’s

of potential supplier. Integrating these environmental data into the decision making process could lead

to an enhanced environmental performance throughout the whole supply chain of an industry

(Humphreys 2003).

The literature also gives other uses of DSS which enable environmental sustainability in organizations

with a public function. Examples are: An environmental decision support system (EDSS) for the

rehabilitation of rivers (Reichert 2007), An EDSS that supports landscape management for nature

conservation (Rudner 2007) and EDSS for managing the waste streams within cities (Chang 2013).

The data that is used in these EDSS can be shared with local businesses which could then integrate

this data into their own DSS if they want to have a DSS which takes the local environment into

consideration

4.3 Evaluating DSS for environmental sustainability

DSS support and influence the decision processes within businesses. In order to enable a more

environmental friendly decision making process within businesses, data from different environmental

factors can be included in a DSS. This will improve the environmental risk management of a company

and therefore the organizational environmental sustainability. On the other hand information about

cause and effect could improve the organization’s insight about the effects of possible adjustments in

business processes in order to meet ecological objectives. Another improvement to DSS that can be

done in order to increases the environmental sustainability of businesses is to integrate shared

knowledge about what kind of actions work regarding to the sustainability agenda of an organization.

As well as to share and integrate knowledge and information about the local environment. By

integrating all these different aspects into a DSS, the decisions made in a company will be influenced

by ecological factors in such a way that a business becomes more environmentally sustainable.

5 Improvement of Sustainable ICT within organizations

In the previous chapters of this thesis, the different opportunities that exist in order to improve

organizational environmental sustainability by making use of IT were discussed.

Because this field is new and developing rapidly, limited guidelines, standards and best practices are

available in order to provide guidance to find innovative ways to use Sustainable Information &

Communication Technology (SICT) in business processes. The challenges IT departments are facing

with SICT are derived from the fact that environmental sustainability is an enterprise-wide issue1.

Because of this, businesses are facing the challenge to develop clear environmental sustainability

strategies and objectives that span the whole organization before IT department could implement or

improve SICT (Ravichandran 2005).

Enterprise-wide sustainability strategies influence the SICT of a business. Therefore, a better

understanding of the maturity of SICT is necessary in order to develop an optimized SICT. This raises

the question: “How to assess and improve sustainable ICT within enterprises?”

Because assessing and improving Sustainable ICT within enterprises is important for the development

of a sufficient SICT structure. The Innovation value Institute (IVI) developed a capability maturity

framework for SICT (Donnellan 2011). That allows the assessing and improving the SICT is such a

way that it corresponds with the objectives that were stated in to the overall sustainability strategy of a

business. IVI used an open-innovation model in order to create the SICT -Capability Maturity

Framework. The goal of this framework is to measure the maturity of SICT within an organization.

The framework develop by IVI also provides a management system that guides business

managements in selecting strategies in order to continuously improve, develop and manage the

company’s SICT (Barbara 2012).

The SICT- Capability Maturity Framework contains components of existing approaches for

measuring SICT, such as the G-readiness framework.

5.1 G-readiness framework

The G-readiness framework aims to capture the capability of a business in revolving IT related to

environmental sustainability problems. This is done on five different levels within an organization.

However the literature stated two different forms of Sustainable ICT2 this framework does not make

differences between IT that enables green business processes and the development of more

environmental sustainable IT- infrastructures.

The framework focuses on the environmental aspects/criteria of attitudes, policies, practices,

technology and governances in combination with the businesses IT-infrastructure and its IT

management. Therefore, the G-readiness frame-work is a conceptualization of measurements from

organizational IT preparedness to be environmentally responsible and competitive. It provides

practitioners of IT with a benchmark to gain insight in possible improvements within the organization.

Because this framework also includes competitiveness it not only takes the environmental sustainable

aspects into account but also the economical sustainable aspects. (Molla 2009).

In this framework attribute refers

to the affective characteristics of

the business and the IT

Management. It measures the

awareness and interest among the

business and IT management

about the economical, strategic,

regulatory, social and, in this case

the most important, environmental

concerns. Policy in this

framework refers to the G-

readiness of business policies. In

other words, to which extend does

an organization has green and/or

sustainability policies. Under

policy the IT operations

encompasses how and which kind

of operations and services

provided by a business

infrastructure support issues

encapsulated in business

environmental sustainability.

Because these could be a different

between business policies and the

practice within the business,

practice is included in this

framework to measure the readiness of the organizational capability to translate policy into action.

Technology encompasses the IT solutions used to acquirer more environmental effectiveness within

an organization. Therefore it measures to which extent developed IT solution support green initiative

within and beyond an enterprise. On the other hand IT itself as a consumer of energy and the

technologies used to decrease the energy consumption are measured. Finally, the framework aims to

2 Ref: Paragraph 2.1 Environmental Sustainability Strategy

Fig.3 The G-readiness Model. Source: (Molla 2008)

masseuse the business Governance. The focus herby is on the maturity and capabilities embedded in

the management infrastructure to implement SICT.

5.2 SICT- Capability Maturity Framework

The Sustainable Information & Communication Technology (SICT)-Capability Maturity Framework

defines five levels concerning maturity on the development curve of SICT capabilities within an

organization. These are the following levels:

Initial: ad hoc use of SICT with little understanding of the subject and policies.

Basis: Limited SICT strategy. It is reactive and there is a lack of consistency.

However there is an increase in the awareness of the subject

Intermediate: SICT strategies exist and the organization is developing capabilities and

skills that contribute to this sustainable strategy. Employees are stimulated to

contribute to the business environmental sustainability strategy.

Advanced: Sustainability is a core component of the IT and Business planning life

cycle. IT and business works together within the process of decreasing environmental

violation across the enterprises. The design of the system includes the processes that

enable the achievement of best practices.

Optimizing: The organization is seen as a sustainability leader within their industry,

because the business has started to include stockholders such as supplies and

consumers in their SICT practices. SICT is a key factor of the organization and

generally works as a competitive differentiator in the market (Donnellan 2011).

This framework provides organization with a tool to manage their sustainability capabilities. Because,

this framework provides a comprehensive overview for assessing and evaluation, organizing, planning

and managing SICT capabilities, the use of SICT-CMF will give organizations the possibility to

assess the maturity of their own SICT capabilities. Assessing the maturity of the business SICT and

the managerial roadmaps provided by this framework will allow the management to systematically

improve SICT capabilities in order to meet the overall environmental sustainability objectives of the

firm.

5.3 Evaluating the SICT-Capability Maturity framework

The SICT- Capability Maturity Framework includes the measuring of different business aspects in

relation to sustainable information and communication technologies. By assessing an business

maturity and capability of their Sustainable ICT the framework will provide insight on who mature a

business SICT is on a five lever development curve. This will give the executive management and IT

management great insight in what is already accomplished and what could be further improved so that

a business Sustainable ICT could be optimized. However that the field of sustainable ICT is new and

developing rapidly the framework allows innovation in the development of SICT. This, because the

SICT – Capability Maturely framework only asses businesses their SICT, and provide an insight on

how mature a business SICT is. The framework also gives guidance in where to focus while

improving a business SICT, but it will not give a one size fits all solution.

6 Conclusion

The problem statement of this thesis is: “How can, from a managerial point of view, information

system engineering enable environmental sustainability within and across enterprises?”

In the previous sections several possibilities have been discussed on how to use IT in such a way that

this enables a more environmental friendly business process from a managerial perspective. However

the field of SICT is new and developing rapidly, the scientific literature provides guidelines, frame-

works and best practices in order to develop innovative ways to use SICT in business processes.

This thesis describes the following tools that could be used in order to enable and increase

environmental sustainability with the use of Information Systems in organizations:

IT management frameworks for Sustainable Information Technology

Decision Supporting System that enables Environmental Sustainability

Frameworks that access, and therefore could provide improvement measurements of, SICT

within organizations.

6.1 IT management frameworks for Sustainable Information Technology

At first, several Information Technologies Management Frameworks that are widely used among

CIO’s and IT Professionals were subject of interest in chapter 3. These frameworks allow the

practitioners to insert ecological objectives. Because the IT management frameworks are fundamental

tools by the implementation and revising of IT components and infrastructures in organizations, the

inclusion of ecological objectives in the framework will affect the development of these IT

infrastructures in such a way that they enable more environmental sustainable business processes.

However, the users of these frameworks need to include the ecological objectives actively.

6.2 SICT enabling Decision Supporting System

Secondly, the Decision Supporting Systems that were discussed in chapter four, could improve

environmental risk management and therefore the organizations environmental sustainability. This,

because DSS influences the decision making process in a business. By inserting data and

measurements of environmental data such as waste streams, energy consumption and CO2 emission.

6.3 Frameworks that access and improve SICT

The SICT- Capability Maturity Framework provides the top management of an organization with a

tool that could lead to a comprehensive overview of their businesses IT maturity concerning

environmental sustainability. By assessing the maturity of the business, SICT and the managerial

roadmaps provided by this framework the management will become capable to systematically

improve SICT capabilities in order to meet the overall environmental sustainability objectives of the

firm.

6.4 Final Recommendation

This thesis shows that the theory provides several guidelines, frameworks and best practices in order

to design an environmental sustainability enabling information management system within an

organization. These different tools could have an important contribution to a successful

implementation of SICT. These different tools were discussed in an earlier section of this chapter.

Finally, and most important, is the overall environmental sustainability strategy, as discussed in

chapter two. In order to implement SICT successfully, managers and employees need to actively work

with an environmentally sustainable focus. This focus is often the result of a business wide

environmental sustainability strategy. Such a strategy should be focusing on the business-processes

within an organization. Only then can the implementation of Environmental Sustainability enabling

Information Technology systems be used to its full potential.

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