Designing and using carbon management systems to promote ecologically responsible behaviors

Abstract

With the hope of mitigating the harmful impacts of climate change, many organizations are taking actions to reduce their carbon footprints. Carbon-reducing initiatives in organizations are varied: they range from green product innovations to encouraging behavioral changes by customers and employees. Green IS can play an important role in environmental sustainability by supporting a number of these strategies. Drawing on theories of persuasive systems design, this paper explores how one category of Green IS, carbon management systems (CMS), can be designed and used in order to persuade employees to perform ecologically responsible behaviors. The results from three organizational case studies suggest that CMS can be effective at changing employees' environmental behaviors, demonstrate the extent to which persuasive system design principles (including an emergent category of Integration) are reflected in CMS, and highlight the importance of understanding the persuasion context. The findings of the study are used to inform the development of four propositions, which can serve as a foundation for further research in the Green IS domain.