Exploring the roles of ICT in supporting sustainability practices (1606.00889v1)

Abstract: The concern about sustainability has arisen due to the overuse of natural resources and the increased use of energy consumption over the last decades. Information communication technologies (ICT) has the potential to address the three main aspects of sustainability (people, planet, profit) and therefore, several organizations have initiated a sustainable development by integrating ICT within their business activities. However, the roles of ICT in supporting sustainability initiatives have only been discussed in a limited number of studies and there is a lack of practical examples that demonstrate how the different roles of ICT are played out in an organization's environment. Therefore, this research aims to explore how ICT can be used by organizations to support sustainability initiatives. In particular, in this research-in-progress paper, we examine how a leading organization deploys Internet-of-Things as an example of an ICT application to support various sustainability initiatives. The study findings enhance the current understanding of how ICT can support sustainability practices of organizations.