An Information System Design Theory for Green Information Systems for Sustainability Reporting - Integrating Theory with Evidence from Multiple Case studies

Due to increasingly noticeable environmental impacts of business activities and consequently rising demands for environmental information by organizational stakeholders, reliable sustainability reporting (SR) is ever more important for firms. As the task of detailed sustainability reporting is complex and involves gathering and processing of a considerable amount of data, green information systems (Green IS) are seen as suitable to support this task. While some Green IS for SR are commercially available, their adoption is low. One reason is that there is a lack of knowledge of how to design these IS. This paper seeks to provide guidance for the design of Green IS for SR by suggesting an information system design theory (ISDT), which is a set of primarily prescriptive statements describing how to construct the class of Green IS for SR. Therefore, we synthesize knowledge gained from organizational and management theories with insights from 29 case studies conducted in a variety of industries. In result we derived a specific ISDT for Green IS for SR, that contributes to solve the trade-offs between environmental data transparency, complexity and data collection effort. Thus, the proposed ISDT paves the way for future improved Green IS for SR and sustainable development.