Environmentally Sustainable ICT: A Critical Topic for IS Research?

This paper aims to increase awareness and understanding of the environmental sustainability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and to highlight the opportunities for timely action by Information Systems (IS) researchers and practitioners in this field. Through examples from a diversity of literature sources this paper defines the problems and the scope of ICT environmental sustainability. The potential for inclusion of this topic in the mainstream of Information Systems (IS) research is evaluated by testing the definition, scope and examples against both Barki et al.’s (1993) Keyword Classification Scheme for IS Research Literature and a current test for classification as IS research. This paper concludes that: the issue of environmental sustainability of ICT is applicable to the mainstream of IS research; the research issue is sustainable; and warrants urgent action by IS researchers. Contributions include: review of multi-disciplinary literature to better inform the reader; proposal of a definition of the environmental sustainability of ICT derived from the literature; description of the scope; presentation of a rationale for IS researchers to contribute to resolution of the issue; and submission of a research taxonomy to facilitate IS research activity into aspects of the environmental sustainability of ICT.