The Sustainability Imperative in Information Systems Research

in Communications of the Association for Information Systems (2017), 40(3), 40--52

Sustainability indicators

in König, Ariane; Ravetz, Jerome (Eds.) Sustainability Science (2018)

In our science-based society, we are surrounded by indicators. At every turn they tell us where we are, how we compare, where we should or should not be and whether we are moving towards or away from the ... [more ▼]

In our science-based society, we are surrounded by indicators. At every turn they tell us where we are, how we compare, where we should or should not be and whether we are moving towards or away from the desired or undesired state. Wealth and health of individuals, communities and natural systems are conveyed by indicators. Their representations include numbers, graphs, dials, letters, symbols and colours. And they vary in reliability, from the gauge that says your car’s engine temperature is ‘normal’, to the prediction that next month’s weather temperatures will be ‘normal’. They are one of the main channels whereby the citizen interacts with science. How can the citizen make good decisions in the midst of this jungle of indicators? The citizen might well ask, “What do I really know, when I’m told that I have an Ecological Footprint of 4.1 global hectares? And then what should I do about it?” [less ▲]

Sustainability of biomass resources for the use in decentralized biomass energy systems

Doctoral thesis (2010)

Sustainability reporting out of a prisoner’s dilemma

in Comby, J.; Eames, K.; Guiherý, L. (Eds.) et al Developing Sustainability (2013)

Listed firms increasingly strive for a sustainable appearance, which has made sustainability reporting very popular in recent years. This would be completely rational if sustainability reporting could ... [more ▼]

Listed firms increasingly strive for a sustainable appearance, which has made sustainability reporting very popular in recent years. This would be completely rational if sustainability reporting could enhance shareholder value. This paper investigates from a theoretical perspective which conditions are sufficient for the individual and collective rationality of sustainability reporting. The Analysis leads to the conclusion that, due to the competition between firms, sustainability reporting generates a separation equilibrium as long as the reporting costs are proportional to the reported level and the marginal costs of reporting differ with the true level of sustainability. Although it might be preferable, a pooling equilibrium with no sustainability reporting cannot be sustained, which is a result of the so-called prisoner’s dilemma that firms find themselves caught within. The most important practical implication of the model is a call for external auditing with high assurance levels to ensure an efficient separation of highly and weakly sustainable firms [less ▲]

Sustainability science as a transformative social learning process

in König, Ariane (Ed.) Sustainability science: Key issues (2018)

Sustainability – The travelling empty-master-signifier

Scientific Conference (2015, April)

Sustainability's Coming Home : Preliminary Design Principles for the Sustainable Smart District

in 14. International Business Informatics Conference (2019)

Consumer trends like local consumption, sharing of property, and environmental awareness change our habits and thereby our surroundings. These trends have their origin in our direct environment, in the ... [more ▼]

Consumer trends like local consumption, sharing of property, and environmental awareness change our habits and thereby our surroundings. These trends have their origin in our direct environment, in the districts of our city or community, where we live and socialize. Cities and districts are changing to “smart cities” and “smart districts” as a part of the ongoing digitalization. These changes offer the possibility to entrench the idea of sustainability and build a platform-based ecosystem for a sustainable smart district. This research aims to identify guidelines in form of preliminary design principles (PDPs) for sustainable smart districts. To achieve this, we conduct a structured literature review. On this basis, we derive and develop PDPs with the help of semi-structured interviews and a non-representative sample of the German population. The resulting nine PDPs describe a first insight into the design of sustainable smart districts. [less ▲]

A Sustainability-Centric Methodology for the Shunt-in Shunt-out Problem

in Transport research Arena (2022)

Sustainability? Local opportunities and scalar contradictions

Presentation (2015)

In 2014, a colleague and I guest edited a Special Issue of Local Environment. Focus was on the urban and local scale as it is often postulated to be the most appropriate site of sustainability ... [more ▼]

In 2014, a colleague and I guest edited a Special Issue of Local Environment. Focus was on the urban and local scale as it is often postulated to be the most appropriate site of sustainability intervention. But we were also interested in mechanisms of change that higher levels of authority are not able to engage. Clearly, there is a rich diversity of initiatives: Ideas are abound, technologies are available, and projects already exist in a variety of forms and at various stages of maturity. In this way, the issue contributes to the growing catalog of sustainability efforts. Significant, however, was that local initiatives must be viewed not as isolated events, but in association the wider multi-scalar contexts that enable them or inhibit them. If making a better planet ultimately means invoking change on a broad scale – which is the broad goal of sustainable development, sustainability, or sustainability transitions – then ideas have to originate with one or a few bodies, and there must be a process of translating the emerged new practice to anchor it at wider-reaching scales. In this way, the general course can be changed. Yet, it is a path that treads the fine line between alternative niches and mainstream, between counter and accepted practice, between the visionary ‘lone (eco)hero’ and conventional operations, between real change in the mainstream and expropriation of the alternative by the mainstream. At this point, a paradox often arises as local initiatives transgress from micro-local to wider, established and well known spheres. This tension – between what enables and what constrains actors interested in sustainability transitions – is the focus of this contribution. [less ▲]

Sustainable Building Transitions in Luxembourg and Freiburg: Local Meanings, Circumstances and Rationales

Doctoral thesis (2018)

Sustainable building has become a subject of high policy emulation to address sustainability challenges. Publications and interventions from international organisations concord in outlining the high share ... [more ▼]

Sustainable building has become a subject of high policy emulation to address sustainability challenges. Publications and interventions from international organisations concord in outlining the high share of greenhouse gas emissions produced by the building sector, while at the same time pointing towards the important leverage for sustainability interventions on the built environment. The realisation of sustainable building crosses serval functional domains: regulatory, economic, cultural, social, natural etc. It requires also to consider buildings in a comprehensive manner from their inception, construction, up to their use and eventual retrofit or demolition but also in relationship with their wider (urban) settings. And last but not least, it requires close interactions with a wide range of stakeholders with different interests and disciplinary perspectives. As a result, sustainable building transformations are a widely diversified agenda. Hence the primary interest, as well as objective of this work, has been to try to better grasp the causes and mechanisms that explain such large differentiation of sustainable building. Drawing on critical sustainable urban literature, I posit sustainable building as diversified because it is a situated and socially mediated object. Conceptually, the work engages with two approaches. First the literature on sustainable socio-technical transitions, in particular the Multi-Level Perspective. Its grounding in co-evolutionary and institutional thinking helps to comprehend the socio-material complexity of sustainable building across a broad range of dimensions and connections. In complementing, and following the adopted socially constructed stance, the work further looks at the discursive constructs used to argue in favour of the transformation towards sustainable building, as the performativity of discourse helps to explain why that change occurs. The operationalisation of the research inquires sustainable building transformations in two European urban areas, Luxembourg (LU) and Freiburg (D), that both focus on sustainable building transformations in their urban policy agenda. Using a mix of qualitative research methods (interviews, cooperative research workshops, and the discourse analysis of a text corpus), I look into detail at how sustainable building policies are played out and how their content varies in relation to the geographical context in which they are situated. Of particular interest to my research is to understand why the transitions towards sustainable building in Luxembourg and Freiburg is a certain way, following the ideologies and interpretations that underlay it. This focus allows to uncover similarities in both Luxembourg and Freiburg where sustainable building is dominantly addressed via technicalities, energy efficiency and green growth, thus tying onto the mainstreamed socio-economic paradigm, despite locally differentiated circumstances. [less ▲]