A Protocol to Address Ecological Redirection for Digital Practices in Organizations

Abstract: The digitalization of societies raises questions about its sustainability and the socio-technical impacts it generates. Ecological redirection applied to organizations is a field of research aiming for achieving sustainability as a direction, rather than for technical means. Arbitration and renunciation to some digital usage and technologies are investigated. Ecological redirection is, however, not yet addressing concrete methodologies for its implementation in organizations. This paper therefore proposes a protocol to support stakeholders in the ecological redirection of their digital practices. This protocol is based on mapping attachments to digital tools through a multi-disciplinary survey. It then proposes increasing stakeholders' knowledge and skills to prepare a debate on the arbitration of renunciations, and finally, to operationalize the closure/transformation of targeted digital practices. This protocol will be tested in real conditions in different contexts. An empirical study is proposed to measure 1) the fluidity with which participants carry out the protocol, 2) the effectiveness of the protocol in terms of the redirection objective, 3) the socio-technical barriers to the redirection process. The paper concludes on the potential benefits for organizations to better understand both the barriers related to its ecological redirection and the transformative aim of such protocols. This will help them trigger large and radical policies towards a desirable and sustainable society.