"Our global climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear, and there is potential for rapid changes with effects that would be irreversible-if we do not rapidly slow fossil fuel emissions during the next few decades” -climate scientist James Hansen. It’s not a new discovery--the climate is rapidly altering, and the majority of it can be attributed to human impact. The real discovery, yet to be found, is the solution to this monumental problem. Research is constantly underway to discover ways to halt the damage, as well as find ways to improve our environmental sustainability. Nigel P. Melville writes to galvanize environmental sustainability research on information systems. Information systems (IS) are combinations of information technology and people’s activities using that technology to support operations, management, and decision-making--essentially business enterprises. Why might this even matter to you? Won’t you be alive in the next few decades? Like Hansen said, “there is a potential for rapid changes with effects that would be irreversible if we do not rapidly slow fossil fuel emissions during the next few decades.”
The entirety of Melville’s fifteen page article, Information Systems Information for Environmental Stability, can be summarized by four objectives: to summarize the results of articles published in leading IS journals, to define and discuss Coleman’s micro-macro model to develop the concept belief-action-outcome, to develop a set of research questions, and to conclude by summarizing findings and discussing implications for this research. These objectives help to explain Melville’s overall belief that IS plays a critical role in “shaping beliefs about the environment, in enabling and transforming sustainable processes and practices in organizations, and in improving environmental and economic performance” (Melville, 1). I will briefly and effectively outline these four objectives.
Melville finds three principal topics while researching articles published in leading IS journals. They include: antecedents, performance, and supply chains. Antecedents refer to factors that promote or inhibit the adoption of sustainable business practices. Studies in performance examine the association between sustainability practices and organizational and environmental performance outcomes. Finally, supply chains relate an example of the inter organizational focus. Coleman’s Micro-Macro model can be defined as shaping the role of individuals in associating micro-level variables (individuals) and macro-level variables (social structure). Essentially, the model seeks to describe the importance of the two levels of organization and how they both strongly affect each other. Melville composes a list of questions, whose purpose is to “illustrate how researchers might begin to tackle complex problems arising at the nexus of IS, organizations, and environmental sustainability” (Melville, 14). Four of these questions fall under the domain of philosophical perspective and theory, while six of the questions are categorized by the phenomena belief, action, and outcome. After explaining and discussing the solutions to the questions, Melville also connects them to belief-action-outcome, which simply explains how macro-level variables and micro-level variables are all intertwined in the context of environmental sustainability. The final objective of the paper is a conclusion/review of the overall purpose of his research. Melville re-iterates the sole problem that prompts the article: environmental sustainability is one of the most important global challenges of the 21st century. Furthermore, he relays the important role that IS plays in this challenge. He gives the reader a sense of the many potential issues that IS scholars might analyze. Then, he stresses the importance that business organizations play a huge role in mitigating the climate change (because of their dominance in the global economy) as well as working toward becoming more environmentally sustainable. These businesses can be persuaded by motivating them to take actions to achieve environmental objectives.
Information systems are fundamentally important for the global problem of climate change, yet they are vastly misunderstood. When understood properly, they can enable new practices and processes for belief formation, action formation, and outcome assessment--essentially, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind that climate deterioration is rapid, people (especially business organizations) will seek to take action, and there will be a strong improvement from where we once started. All of these practices help to stop the bad practices harming the environment, as well as to actively search for solutions. Melville maintains “there needs to be a development of well-founded discourse on IS for environmental sustainability that leads to improvement of the natural environment” (Melville, 14).
Melville, Nigel P. MIS Quarterly. Information Systems Innovation for Environmental Sustainability. 1 Mar. 2010. Web. 9 Sept. 2010. <http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/ pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&hid=118&sid=0c88ffaa-280a-4116- bdf0-9ab3eef5f619%40sessionmgr104>.
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