Information Systems and Environmentally Sustainable Development: Energy Informatics and New Directions for the IS Community1
Abstract
While many corporations and Information Systems units recognize that environmental sustainability is an urgent problem to address, the IS academic community has been slow to acknowledge the problem and take action. We propose ways for the IS community to engage in the development of environmentally sustainable business practices. Specifially, as IS researchers, educators, journal editors, and association leaders, we need to demonstrate how the transformative power of IS can be leveraged to create an ecologically sustainable society. In this Issues and Opinions piece, we advocate a research agenda to establish a new subfield of energy informatics, which applies information systems thinking and skills to increase energy efficiency. We also articulate how IS scholars can incorporate environmental sustainability as an underlying foundation in their teaching, and how IS leaders can embrace environmental sustainability in their core principles and foster changes that reduce the environmental impact of our community.
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Within this model, the information systems discipline has a significant and mediating role given its socio-technical orientation and appreciation of the open systems paradigm.
“Within this model, the information systems discipline has a significant and mediating role given its socio-technical orientation and appreciation of the open systems paradigm (Scott & Davis, 2015;von Bertalanffy, 1950;Watson et al., 2010).”
From Climate change and COP26: Are digital technologies and information management part of the problem or the solution? An editorial reflection and call to action (2022) · cites this paper as Watson et al., 2010
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- Authors
- Watson, R. T., Boudreau, M.-C., & Chen, A. J.
- Affiliations
- Department of MIS, University of Georgia, Atlanta, GA 30602-6273, U.S.A.
- University of Georgia (US)
- Venue
- MIS Quarterly
- Publisher
- MIS Quarterly
- Published
- 2010-03-01
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 23-38
- ISSN
- 0276-7783 (ISSN-L)
- 2162-9730
- OpenAlex
- W1510971620
- Cited by
- 1,101
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 37 · 2025: 47 · 2024: 71 · 2023: 59 · 2022: 48 · 2021: 48 · 2020: 57 · 2019: 66 · 2018: 49 · 2017: 64 · 2016: 65 · 2015: 87 · 2014: 100 · 2013: 99 · 2012: 100
- FWCI
- 76.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- MIS Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Green IT and Sustainability
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management Information Systems › Information Technology Governance and Strategy
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information Systems Education and Curriculum Development
- Keywords
- energy informatics, environmental sustainability, sustainable business practices, energy efficiency, information systems research agenda
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