Sustainability in IS Projects: A Case Study

Sustainability is without doubt one of the most important challenges of our time. How can we develop prosperity, without compromising the life of future generations? Information systems (IS) provide organizations with the ability to change and improve business processes to better support sustainable practices. Therefore, IS can make a contribution to the sustainable development of organizations. However, the organizational change aspects of Green IS are covered only marginally in the emerging literature. This paper aims to contribute the debate on Green IS, by highlighting the role of sustainability in the projects developing or implementing IS. The paper therefore explores the impact of the concepts of sustainability on IS projects. Based on a literature review of the concepts of sustainability, and the relationship between sustainability and project, we will report a maturity assessment of a case study of a Green IS project. We will conclude the paper by addressing the most likely areas of impact for sustainability in IS projects

Sustainability in IS Projects: a Case Study

Sustainability is without doubt one of the most important challenges of our time. How can we develop prosperity, without compromising the life of future generations? Information systems (IS) provide organizations with the ability to change and improve business processes to better support sustainable practices. Therefore, IS can make a contribution to the sustainable development of organizations. However, the organizational change aspects of Green IS are covered only marginally in the emerging literature. This paper aims to contribute the debate on Green IS, by highlighting the role of sustainability in the projects developing or implementing IS

Sustainability in Project Management: Reality Bites

The relationship between project management and sustainable development is rapidly gaining interest from both practitioners and academics. Studies on the integration of the concepts of sustainability into project management, approach this topic mostly from a conceptual, logical or moral point of view. Given the fact that the relationship between sustainability and project management is still an emerging field of study, these approaches make sense. However, they do not diminish the need for more empirical studies to understand how the concepts of sustainable development are implemented in practice. This paper reports an analysis of 56 case studies on the integration of the concepts of sustainability in the way organizations initiate, develop and manage projects. The research question of the study was: To what extent, do organizations consider the concepts of sustainability in the initiation, development and management of projects? The study uses the maturity model for sustainability integration that was presented at the 2010 IPMA World Congress for the assessment of the level of sustainability consideration. The study found an overall average level of sustainability consideration in the actual situation of 25.9%. For the desired situation, this score is almost 10 percent higher, showing an ambition to take sustainability more into consideration. The study also showed that the way sustainability currently is considered, shows the traditional ‘less bad’ approach to sustainability integration and not a more modern social responsibility approach