AMCIS2013


 * AMCIS 2013 Track Description **
 * Track Name: Green IS and Sustainability **

Sponsoring SIG(s): SIGGreen siggreen.wikispaces.com Track Co-Chairs:

Cathy Dwyer, Pace University, cdwyer[AT]pace.edu

Shu Schiller, Wright State University, shu.schiller[AT]wright.edu Description:

Environmental sustainability and climate change is a global issue, with many cultural, organizational, technical, social, regulatory, and individual factors. Just as computer-based information systems have been the driving force for productivity improvements, Green IS can be a driving force for sustainability improvements. “Our quest for environmental sustainability needs an information strategy to parallel and complement engineering solutions.” (Watson, Corbett, Boudreau, Webster, CACM, July 2012).

Green IS applies the transformative power of information systems to support environmental sustainability. It addresses the world’s greatest challenge: shrinking access to non-renewable resources, increased energy and food costs, and environmental degradation due to climate change. This track is open to any type of research related to defining the scope of Green IS research, as well as adapting research into teaching cases, modules, and courses in order to prepare Green IS professionals.

IS research has historically taken a cross functional view of organizational information, a perspective that greatly increased the efficiency of the modern enterprise. IS research can re-apply this perspective to model global consumption patterns, and with the use of energy informatics, increase the efficiency of global consumption and support environmental sustainability.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

The use of IS to change human behaviors towards sustainable business practices

Energy Informatics

Green HCI: Interface design for display and simulation of consumption patterns

The role of social software to encourage sustainable practices

Interdisciplinary sustainability curricula

Critical competencies for Green IS professionals

Defining a course of study to prepare Green IS professionals

The use of social media in Green IS curricula

IS in support of environmental sustainability

IS to support carbon management, accounting and reporting

IS in support of social sustainability

IS to support global competitiveness

IS to promote sustainability and competitiveness

The emergence of regional and global sustainability IS standards

The design, implementation, and use of IS to reduce organizations’ environmental impact

The design, implementation, and use of IS to improve organizations’ social impact

The design, implementation, and use of IS to improve global competitiveness

Issues surrounding the assessment and measurement of information systems sustainability

Issues surrounding the assessment and measurement of information systems' contribution to global competitiveness

Sustainable development in transitional and developing countries

About SIGGreen:

SIGGreen is a group of Information Systems researchers dedicated to finding socio-technical solutions in support of environmental responsibility and sustainable development.

SIGGreen, the Special Interest Group on Green IS of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) accepts the scientific consensus that human activity bears significant responsibility for detrimental environmental change. Members of the IS community should assume their share of the responsibility to reduce wherever possible, the environmental impact of activities in which they participate. It is incumbent upon them, as IS professionals, to apply their knowledge and expertise towards global sustainable development.

SIGGREEN recognizes that sustainable development:

Is a complex challenge requiring a holistic and multidisciplinary systems approach for its resolution;

Has social and economic origins and consequences that must be considered in an integrated, systematic, and scientific manner;

SIGGREEN recognizes that the Information Systems discipline can have a central role in creating an ecologically sustainable society because of the field’s five decades of experience in designing, building, deploying, evaluating, managing, and studying information systems to resolve complex problems.

SIGGREEN understands that:

Information improves humans’ ability to make decisions related to environmental change;

Information systems are essential to enabling the large scale cooperative action that is necessary to address challenges related to environmental change;

Information systems provide critical mechanisms to support a sustainable society.

SIGGREEN will:

Maintain a role for IS in mitigating, reversing and adapting to environmental change;

Facilitate encourage and disseminate innovative, research that contributes to resolving environmental change problems;

Provide leadership in championing and implementing less environmentally damaging practices for its academic endeavors;

Participate with other academic and practitioner associations in pursuing an environmentally responsible future.

Members of SIGGREEN are encouraged to take the following actions:

Develop appropriate curricula, programs and content to provide IS students with the skills and knowledge to contribute to resolving environmental change problems;

Undertake appropriate solution-oriented research into environmental change issues of mitigation, reversal, and adaptation;

Apply their skills and knowledge to help organizations address environmental change problems.