Green IS: Are We Still Thinking in Mere Economic Imperatives or Are We Striving for Eco-Effectiveness?

Organizations are under increasing pressure to account for their environmental footprint and to adopt environmental sustainable practices, and information systems can support organizations in becoming more environmentally sustainable. Through the analysis of expert interviews with eleven representatives from organizations concerned with environmental sustainability, and drawing on a conceptual model of information systems and ecological sustainability, we provide evidence that these organizations see key capabilities of information systems in automating, informing, and transforming to support goals related to eco-efficiency, eco-equity, and eco-effectiveness. However, our analysis also suggests that there is still little awareness of the potential of information systems in fundamentally transforming business models and business processes towards eco-effectiveness as the ultimate goal of environmental protection

NUDGING PEOPLE TO PAY CO2 OFFSETS – THE EFFECT OF ANCHORS IN FLIGHT BOOKING PROCESSES

Carbon-offset donations provide a way to mitigate the environmental damage caused by carbon emissions from aviation, but the number of fliers who choose this option is low. Information systems can support environmentally friendly decision-making in the context of carbon-offset payments. In this research in progress, we describe the research background and a prototypical online environment we developed to conduct a series of online experiments with a variety of “nudges” to promote environmentally friendly decisions. We present the results of an experiment with 150 participants, which show that proposing higher levels of default payments (presented as a slide bar) on an online flight-booking platform significantly increases the amount of carbon-offset payments. Our research contributes to the emergent body of knowledge on green information systems and behavioural economics in IS and has important practical implications, as the results may help airlines and travel agents design online flight-booking processes such that more people decide in favour of offsetting the carbon emissions caused by their air travel

Peri-operative red blood cell transfusion in neonates and infants: NEonate and Children audiT of Anaesthesia pRactice IN Europe: A prospective European multicentre observational study

BACKGROUND: Little is known about current clinical practice concerning peri-operative red blood cell transfusion in neonates and small infants. Guidelines suggest transfusions based on haemoglobin thresholds ranging from 8.5 to 12 g dl-1, distinguishing between children from birth to day 7 (week 1), from day 8 to day 14 (week 2) or from day 15 (≥week 3) onwards. OBJECTIVE: To observe peri-operative red blood cell transfusion practice according to guidelines in relation to patient outcome. DESIGN: A multicentre observational study. SETTING: The NEonate-Children sTudy of Anaesthesia pRactice IN Europe (NECTARINE) trial recruited patients up to 60 weeks' postmenstrual age undergoing anaesthesia for surgical or diagnostic procedures from 165 centres in 31 European countries between March 2016 and January 2017. PATIENTS: The data included 5609 patients undergoing 6542 procedures. Inclusion criteria was a peri-operative red blood cell transfusion. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary endpoint was the haemoglobin level triggering a transfusion for neonates in week 1, week 2 and week 3. Secondary endpoints were transfusion volumes, 'delta haemoglobin' (preprocedure - transfusion-triggering) and 30-day and 90-day morbidity and mortality. RESULTS: Peri-operative red blood cell transfusions were recorded during 447 procedures (6.9%). The median haemoglobin levels triggering a transfusion were 9.6 [IQR 8.7 to 10.9] g dl-1 for neonates in week 1, 9.6 [7.7 to 10.4] g dl-1 in week 2 and 8.0 [7.3 to 9.0] g dl-1 in week 3. The median transfusion volume was 17.1 [11.1 to 26.4] ml kg-1 with a median delta haemoglobin of 1.8 [0.0 to 3.6] g dl-1. Thirty-day morbidity was 47.8% with an overall mortality of 11.3%. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate lower transfusion-triggering haemoglobin thresholds in clinical practice than suggested by current guidelines. The high morbidity and mortality of this NECTARINE sub-cohort calls for investigative action and evidence-based guidelines addressing peri-operative red blood cell transfusions strategies. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT02350348

What can we learn from corporate sustainability reporting? Deriving propositions for research and practice from over 9,500 corporate sustainability reports published between 1999 and 2015 using topic modelling technique.

Organizations are increasingly using sustainability reports to inform their stakeholders and the public about their sustainability practices. We apply topic modelling to 9,514 sustainability reports published between 1999 and 2015 in order to identify common topics and, thus, the most common practices described in these reports. In particular, we identify forty-two topics that reflect sustainability and focus on the coverage and trends of economic, environmental, and social sustainability topics. Among the first to analyse such a large amount of data on organizations' sustainability reporting, the paper serves as an example of how to apply natural language processing as a strategy of inquiry in sustainability research. The paper also derives from the data analysis ten propositions for future research and practice that are of immediate value for organizations and researchers