Connecting People Not Computers : Information Technology and Culture Change in Environmental Management

This thesis examines the role of Environmental Information Management Systems in corporate culture change. Current trends in environmental management which seek to move beyond compliance towards sustainability must be based on new corporate norms. This thesis examines the role of information technology in the creation and operation of these norms and discusses its implications for private and public environmental policy. Using Giddens' structuration theory as a framework, I recast environmental management as a problem of organizational sense-making and argue that a key capability IT offers to organizations in this capacity is that of creating a "communications infrastructure," especially through the use of groupware. These systems are different but complementary to more traditional forms of IT support for environmental management which have emphasized massive data collection, processing and retrieval capabilities. Case studies of three firms using groupware to support environmental management systems are presented. One firm used a proprietary system for e-mail and file sharing, while the other two used Lotus Notes@ applications. IT was implicated in environmental culture through the following: online question asking and answering; offering of new modes of organizational affiliation; creation of internal "green" networks; enhancement of environmental group identity through creation of electronic forums; enhanced organizational '"buy-in" through solicitation of comments on environmental manuals and procedure documents and the routinization of environmental management occasioned by EMIS. Thesis Supervisor: Dr. John Ehrenfeld Title: Director, MIT Program on Technology, Business and Environment Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development