=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2382/ICT4S2019_paper_24
|storemode=property
|title=Sustainable IT Business in the Making: An Exploratory Case Study
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2382/ICT4S2019_paper_24.pdf
|volume=Vol-2382
|authors=Elina Eriksson,Julia Creutz,Hanna Hasselqvist
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ict4s/ErikssonCH19
}}
==Sustainable IT Business in the Making: An Exploratory Case Study==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2382/ICT4S2019_paper_24.pdf
Sustainable IT Business in the Making
An exploratory case study
Elina Eriksson1, Julia Creutz2, Hanna Hasselqvist1
1School of EECS 2Cybercom Group
KTH Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden
Stockholm, Sweden julia.creutz@cybercom.com
elina@kth.se, hannaha@kth.se
Abstract— Businesses have historically had a negative impact the physical, digital and biological worlds across all disciplines,
on the environment by contributing to pollution, the increase of economies and industries [13], bring a lot of possibilities but
greenhouse emissions, neglection of responsible waste disposal, also responsibilities for sustainable development. Businesses
and deforestation among other things. In this paper we present need to take these, and other, factors into consideration and
an exploratory case study of an IT consultancy firm and their
perspective and work with sustainable development. As a consul-
create strategies for developing and managing sustainable
tancy firm, the company does not provide services directly to end products and services.
users, but rather help clients in their business efforts. The aim In this paper we present an exploratory case study of an IT
with this project has been to explore how sustainability concerns consultancy firm and their perspective and work on sustainable
can be integrated into the work processes of an IT consultancy development. As a consultancy firm, the company does not
firm, exploring both opportunities and challenges. provide services directly to end users, but rather help clients in
Index Terms—Digital Sustainability, green ICT, Net Positive, their business efforts. The aim with this project has been to
Sustainable Development Goals, Sustainable Business, ICT for explore how sustainability concerns can be integrated into the
Sustainability
work processes of an IT consultancy firm, exploring both op-
portunities and challenges. The work has been delimited to the
I. INTRODUCTION early phases of projects, when the IT consultancy firm gives
Historically, businesses have had, and continue to have, a clients advice on digital strategies and business development.
negative impact on the environment. Pollution, the increase of The research question for this paper is hence: what can be the
greenhouse emissions, neglection of responsible waste dispos- challenges and opportunities when working with sustainability
al, deforestation and much more, are consequences of unsus- as an IT consultancy firm in the early phases of a business of-
tainable business [1, 2, 3, 4]. The demise of the environment is, fer?
and has been for years, an increasingly important issue. Focus As the IT consultancy firm have been working with inte-
on Sustainable Development have been underway for a long grating sustainability in their business for some time, part of
time, and already in 1987, the World Commission on Environ- the result will cover the processes they have in place. The result
ment and Development published Our Common Future where will also cover how they have worked with SDGs and the Net
they defined the term sustainable development “[as] meeting Positive approach. One major finding concerns not the formal
the needs of the present without compromising the ability of processes, but the prevalence of an underlying ‘tech-culture’
future generations to meet their own needs” [5]. However, that might undermine some of the sustainability efforts.
there are still major issues facing humanity - and businesses
need to be included in creating a better world. II. THEORY AND RELATED RESEARCH
There are several research areas investigating sustainability
A. ICT and Sustainability
and technology; Information Communication Technologies for
Sustainability, Sustainable Human Computer Interaction, Sus- Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) of-
tainable Software Engineering, Sustainable Business, and Sus- fer numerous of opportunities to address sustainability in socie-
tainability Assessment are a few examples [6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. ty. These include, but are not limited to, digitalisation and de-
These are all relevant for IT companies that try to drive sus- materialization, increased energy efficiency and travel substitu-
tainable business. Recent research in Sustainability Assess- tion [14]. Although these solutions offer contributions to sus-
ment, for example, aim to identify problems that affect compa- tainability and sustainable development, there are negative side
nies that are trying to generate more sustainable solutions for effects of ICT as well. Development of ICT products and sys-
technology, and to propose solutions to these problems [11, tems, the use of the technology, and the poorly managed recy-
12]. Information Communication Technologies, being a part of cling and disposal of these products and systems are some ex-
the Fourth Industrial Revolution where new technologies fuse amples [15, 16, 17, 18, 2, 19]. All this further exacerbated by
the ICT sector being driven by a Cornucopian feedback cycle to BST 1.0: broadening the business concern to include sus-
[20], stimulating a seemingly endless infrastructural growth (c.f tainability when economically feasible, from BST 1.0 to BST
Promethean discourse [21]). Sierszsecki, Mikkonen and Stef- 2.0: expanding the value created (to include triple bottom line),
fens define two different concepts within ICT and green soft- and from BST 2.0 to BST 3.0 changing the perspective, starting
ware; Greening ICT and Greening through ICT [14]. In the first with the sustainability issues in the world and then building the
one, Greening ICT, the focus is on ICT itself, and lowering its business around these. This can be compared with the Mann-
energy consumption. Greening through ICT on the other hand, Bate maturity scale (Mann Bates, also used in evaluating ICT
focus on decreasing energy consumption of systems that ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S) research [28]) for HCI research, that
monitor or control. Hilty and Aebischer make similar definition also proposes a larger shift in perspective in their 5th and most
in that they call for action “1. To stop the growth of ICT’s own engaged stage.
footprint 2. To find ways to apply ICT as an enabler in order to
C. Sustainable Development Goals
reduce the footprint of production and consumption by society”
[22, p. 4]. This is an important division, because in 2015 the The Sustainable Development Goals [29] were ratified in
ICT sector itself is estimated to have constituted 3.6% of the September 2015 and include 17 goals and 169 sub targets. The
world’s annual energy consumption and 1.4% of the green- Sustainable Development Goals Compass is a tool aiming to
house gas emissions [23], whilst ICT is estimated to have a aid companies to align their strategies and measure and manage
much larger potential in reducing energy consumption and their contributions to the goals by following five steps [30].
greenhouse gas emissions in other sectors [24, 25]. In the rest The first step, “understanding the SDGs”, allows companies to
of the paper we will refer to these concepts as Sustainability in explore the Sustainable Development Goals; what they are,
ICT and Sustainability through ICT to encompass all the poten- their history, and the possibilities arising when working with
tial sustainability aspects ICT have impact on. them from a business perspective. The second step, “defining
priorities”, enables companies to outline what their priorities
B. Sustainable Business could be using three actions: (1) Map the value chain to identi-
Today there seem to be a disconnection between sustaina- fy impact areas, (2) select indicators and collect data, and (3)
ble business and sustainable development. Firstly, there is a define priorities. Since not all 17 Sustainable Development
gap between academia and practice which needs to be ad- Goals might be relevant to a company, this step help companies
dressed [9]. Secondly, a lot of businesses take on a positive see where they can have the greatest impact. The third step,
stance towards sustainability with the notion that it benefits “setting goals”, is based on the outcomes from the previous
their company, but there is a lack of actual change on a global one. It is about specifying goals that are measurable and time-
level [26]. One reason is the discrepancy between large global bound. This is done by (1) defining a scope of goals and select
problems and considerations of sustainable business on a low key performance indicators, (2) define baseline and select goal
organisational level within companies [27]. Dyllick and Muff type, (3) setting level of ambition, and (4) announce the com-
[26] have in their paper sought to clarify the meaning of sus- pany’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals.
tainable business and the different potential levels are presented The fourth step will help companies with how to integrate the
in a business sustainability typology, see Fig. 1. Sustainable Development Goals in their business strategies.
This is done through describing how they can (1) anchor the
goals within the business, how to (2) embed sustainability
across all functions, and (3) engage in partnerships. The fifth
and final step of the Sustainable Development Goals compass
manages how to continuously report and communicate pro-
gress, which will deepen companies’ understanding of their
stakeholders’ needs.
D. Net Positive
The Net Positive project aims to make businesses to go
from ‘doing less harm’ to a more positive approach to do ‘more
good’ overall [31]. The Net Positive project has established 12
principles that would characterise the Net Positive approach.
To aid companies in establishing a Net Positive mindset in their
Fig. 1. The Meaning of Sustainable Business, from [26] organisation, the project has released two guiding documents;
Communicating Net Positive [32], and Measuring Net Positive
The typology differentiates between Business-as-usual and [11]. In Measuring Net Positive, companies can read about how
Business Sustainability. A company engaging in what is called to measure their positive impact, through principles, required
business-as-usual (BAU) have mainly economic concerns, fo- management steps and best practice on how to measure (some)
cus on creating shareholder value, and have an inside-out or- material impacts. In Communicating Net Positive, companies
ganisational perspective. Business Sustainability (BST) is de- can access complementary examples of how to take action to
fined in three levels: 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. In summary, there are be Net Positive, as well as learn how the framework relates to
three key shifts that are identified in this typology; from BAU other sustainability practices and terminology. To become Net
Positive, businesses need to go beyond doing less harm or be- IV. RESULTS
coming Net Zero or Carbon Neutral; it is aiming to have a re- In this section results from the interviews will be presented.
storative approach to natural and social capital. This includes the company’s relation to sustainability in gen-
III. METHOD eral, how the company work with sustainability in their strate-
gic advice services, and the process the company is aiming for,
To explore how sustainability concerns can be integrated and the opportunities and difficulties with being an IT consul-
into the work processes of an IT consultancy firm, one of the tancy firm attempting to work with sustainability offers.
authors carried out meetings and interviews at a Nordic IT con-
sultancy. The company has about 1300 employees and offers A. Early Engagement in Sustainability
services in all stages of the development of digital systems: The IT consultancy firm was founded in 1995, and they fo-
creation of digital strategies, idea and prototype generation, cus on business to business sales. One respondent argued that
system implementation, testing, and management. For this sustainability has been there since the start, although it was not
study, the focus was on early stages of projects where the con- perhaps identified as sustainability as such. Rather the focus
sultancy firm provides clients with advice on digital strategies was on human resources and human rights, what perhaps could
and business development. This part of the process was chosen be coined as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and envi-
since it may be difficult to include sustainability concerns at ronmental issues (although less specified). In 2010 they
later stages of projects if they are not accounted for already in a launched their first sustainability report and notably they were
strategic stage. one of the first consultancy firms in Sweden to do so. Follow-
Initially, three meetings with the company’s head of strate- ing this, the company has had several internal dialogues about
gic advice services were conducted to get an overview of the how to further improve their sustainability work. This led, for
processes used when providing this type of service – either example, to one of the owners suggesting that they should start
when the company is approached by a client or when the com- looking at what kind of external impact they could have on
pany approaches a client to sell its services. To gain a deeper sustainability issues, rather than only focusing on their internal
understanding of how sustainability is, or could be, integrated impact. After this, the company started evaluating what kind of
into the work processes, semi-structured interviews were con- environmental impact they might have, and what kind of posi-
ducted with six people working with digital sustainability in tive sustainability effects they could deliver through their cus-
relation to the company’s advice services (see Table I for de- tomers.
tails). The interviews were carried out in person, except from Today, the company put a lot of effort in using the Sustain-
the interview with R3 which was carried out over Skype, and able Development Goals and Net Positive in their projects.
all interviews were audio recorded. They make an effort to work with an outside-in perspective,
The interview transcripts were analysed with a focus on which is to say a perspective that focus on need rather than
identifying opportunities and challenges for integrating sustain- product. Namely, the proposed value propositions and business
ability concern into strategic digitalization and business devel- plan innovations that the IT consultancy firm offer to their cli-
opment processes. Furthermore, the company’s processes were ents are based on the knowledge of their client’s marketplace.
mapped in relation to current sustainability efforts and sugges- The greatest asset to this perspective is the customers, and the
tions for how the company could continue refining their pro- ability to differentiate between what the clients make and what
cesses were developed. the client’s customers actually need.
Early on (even before the SDGs were launched) the IT con-
TABLE I. INTERVIEW RESPONDENTS sultancy firm formulated what sustainability effects they might
contribute to through their services to their customers, namely
Respondent Role description Energy savings, Dematerialization, As-a-service, Decreased
Resource Use, Safety and Other, which are further described in
R1 Head of sustainability
Table II.
R2 Head of the company’s strategic advice services
R3 Employee working with strategic advice services
R4 Former employee who worked with strategic advice
services
R5 Independent consultant supporting the company in
developing a process for digital sustainability
R6 Employee at the company’s sales department
client’s products/services and their work within sustainability.
They focus on information that they might not have been able
TABLE II. THE IT CONSULTANCY’S SERVICES AND THEIR to find out by themselves.
SUSTAINABILITY EFFECTS
During the second Internal phase they try to further analyse
the client’s needs and possibilities, also with the Sustainable
Sustainability effect What?
Development Goals and Net Positive in mind. This time around
Energy savings The IT consultancy firm’s client, the they have more information about the client’s products and/or
client’s customer, or the end user can services than during the previous internal step. They might also
decrease their energy use. have gained greater insight into what the client might want or
need.
Dematerialization Physical materials or products are
digitized/digitalized, or the same level of
This then leads to an Offer, which includes a process of
functionality can be delivered with less or workshops in collaboration with their client, as well as data
no material. gathering from their client’s customers. The implementation of
the offering usually contains three separate workshops. The
As-a-service From product to service for the IT first workshop covers inspiration and innovation, aligned with
consultancy’s client, or client’s customer.
the client’s business. The second workshop is about business
Decreased resource use Less or no use of non-renewable resources model innovation, and the last workshop as about tying it all
together by refining, reworking, and defining ideas and solu-
Safety Safer digital spaces and/or increased tions. The idea is that the Sustainable Development Goals and
security Net Positive should be integrated during all the workshops.
However, in the interviews it became clear that the above de-
Other product or service Development beyond the above, that scribed general approach are in practice performed differently
development contributes to the Sustainable Development within the Strategic Advice Services. During the interviews,
Goals and sustainable development.
two different particular approaches were identified.
1) Approach 1
The IT Consultancy firm is committed to continue working One of the approaches used for the Strategic Advice Ser-
with sustainability. One external aim is to become more proac- vices’ digital sustainability offer were described by one of the
tive in their sales work which hopefully would enable them to respondents as the double diamond. A summary of how it is
contribute to greater changes within sustainable development. used in conjunction with Net Positive and the SDGs is dis-
To reach this aim, the IT consultancy firm has developed a played in Fig. 3.
digital sustainability offer within its strategic advice services
[14].
B. Strategic Advice Services
Strategic advice services, where the IT consultancy firm
first meet their clients is the first phase where the company can
help their clients with digital sustainability. A simplified over-
view of their general approach is displayed in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Overview of the general approach used in Strategic Advice Services
Fig. 3. Approach 1, the Double Diamond as described in the interviews
The initial Internal stage begin with research of the current
client in order to gather an understanding of what they offer, The double diamonds approach is common in design, and
what their products or services are, and how they profile them- the employee at the IT consultancy firm who use it argued that
selves regarding sustainability. They also attempt to find possi- it is because of his/her background within industrial design that
ble synergies, and do a trend analysis which involves looking at it is used.
what other companies in the same industry or with similar "I think that it’s probably because I’m so strongly influ-
products/services do. Other than this, they create a possible enced by having a background in industrial design that I am
value proposition where they do a Sustainable Development drawn to this double diamond model, but I think even in non-
Goals inventory, and analyse the possibly relevant indicators designy projects, it translates really well. You start somewhere
for their client. and you don’t know what the problem is so you have to ex-
After this, they move on to the second phase, External, plore, you have to go broad and you have to maybe look for
which includes meeting with the client and getting their inter- details, maybe you don’t know exactly what the problem is
est. In addition, they collect additional information about their don’t know exactly what you’re looking for and then you start
to design it to a more specific case [...] there’s always an itera- Goals and Net Positive is to be considered during phase two,
tion between diverging, opening up, and converging, making three, and four.
things more specific." (R3)
As can be seen in the quote R3 argues that the double dia-
mond is relevant in all kinds of projects. Fig. 3 shows that the
Sustainable Development Goals are assessed during the phase
Discover. The questions asked during that step is “which Sus- Fig. 4. Approach 2 as described in the interviews.
tainable Development Goals are relevant?”, “how is the work
we do today related to any goals?”, “and which goals are for us
(the client) possible to look at in the future?”. At this point an C. SDGs and Net Positive
impact assessment is also made. To do that, the question When Strategic advice services assess which Sustainable
“where do we (the client) want to have an impact as a compa- Development Goals are relevant to a project they start by ex-
ny?” attempts to be answered. The first step is rather broad, and ploring the overview of the 17 goals. When they identify one or
it is during step two, Define, that more specific ideas and solu- several relevant goals for a project, the second step is to look
tions may form. When this narrowing down has been accom- further into the goals by assessing their sub targets. The sub
plished, the outcome should be one or a couple of ide- targets are presented both during the potential value proposition
as/solutions. These can then be assessed from a Net Positive and later in their sustainability report. Two respondents ex-
approach in the third step, Develop. An important question at pressed that the presence of or relation to the goals can some-
that point is “is the ideas/solutions actually contributing to times feel vague, and that there is room for improvement and
something good, or are they only focused on not doing any development in this area:
harm?”. In the last step, Deliver and End solution, respondent ”The SDGs, it’s still a bit vague exactly what we should do
R3 expressed that the IT consultancy firm have work to do with them, how are we to address them and I believe that if we
regarding measuring a project’s impacts, as in the following can get those two [SDG and Net Positive] together in a syner-
quote: gy, then I think that is the best way forward.” (R1)
"When you come to your final solution, I think it’s gonna be As of now, Net Positive is integrated in the IT consultancy
a lot more about doing actual measurements, and I think that’s firm’s digital sustainability in such a way that they talk about
one of the areas where [the IT consultancy firm] maybe has… environmental opportunities rather than obligations. They sug-
more space to develop, that we haven’t really done a lot of as I gest an approach where digitalisation might help their client to
would see, fact-based impact assessments. [describes a par- contribute to the environment and to society, rather than only
ticular case with sustainability goals but not indicators of suc- minimizing their negative impact. One respondent stated that it
cess] I can sort of see the intent behind that, but I think for… is rare to do this within consultancy firms, and that the IT con-
for this process to be [...] credible, later people are going to sultancy firm aim to embrace the possibility to actively con-
ask those questions like ‘how did it actually work? was it actu- tribute to a positive development within digitalisation. What
ally more sustainable’, and if you cannot prove that you’re the same respondent also expressed, was that it is still a rather
probably gonna set it off as a… as a green-washing thing or as new approach and therefore not widely accepted in different
a marketing, or whatever." (R3) industries as in the following quote:
Respondent R3 argued that if they were to use the last stage “The drawback with Net Positive is that it isn’t used that
to set indicators for goals and measurement, it would be easier much, and there aren’t that many that who understands it, and
to make fact-based assessments of their impacts. it is a bit difficult to actually, or not a little, it’s actually quite
2) Approach 2 hard to measure it” (R1)
Another approach that emerged during the interviews is Hence it is difficult to measure the impact or success, which
displayed in Fig. 4. The first step in the approach is Finding makes it more difficult to prove that the IT consultancy firm’s
synergies between the IT consultancy firm and its client. It is a actions actually make a difference.
sort of evaluation of what the IT consultancy firm can offer
their client through collaboration. Step two, Research, includes D. Consultancy and tech culture
research about the client and their business, their prod- Being a consultancy firm makes it possible for the IT Con-
ucts/services, what they do within sustainability, and their cur- sultancy to affect companies cross-industry and this does bring
rent partnerships. The aim is to know as much about their client both difficulties and opportunities to the fore. Three respond-
as they can to suggest relevant development. After this, a trend ents stated that they as an IT consultancy firm are used to fast
analysis is conducted. This is a benchmark of what other com- changes, and one respondent said that they have the possibility
panies or organisations in the client’s industry are doing, what to connect disruptive technical opportunities to business oppor-
technical developments and trends might be relevant, and what tunities. The same respondent also expressed that some diffi-
is being, and can be done, in the said industry regarding sus- culties may be that consultancies are often considered to only
tainability. After these three steps, the information gathered be interested in selling their services, that is making profit,
makes it possible for the IT consultancy firm to create a value which makes it important to be confident in their sustainability
proposition for their client. The Sustainable Development focused offer and be able to present the customer value of
working with sustainability. This respondent also stated that
“there is a ‘tech-culture’ that focuses on efficiency within exist- “So, I think it looks really promising but for me, personally,
ing systems among many of those who work with IT” (R5), it needs to become more concrete, like going through it like in
which can be an issue when trying to accomplish a Net Positive a specific case, one or two times before you can actually… I
approach. Another respondent mentioned that there are engi- feel like right now it’s hard to judge like, ‘oh this is missing
neers at the company that do not see the purpose of digital sus- and that is missing’ because I haven’t experienced it.” (R3)
tainability and state that they are an IT firm that should focus The respondent did however continue to argue that it looks
on tech, as exemplified in the following quote: really promising, but that it needs to become more concrete.
“This is a way to think, that we should use this fantastic de- Overall, three of the respondents expressed that they liked
velopment [digital sustainability] in a positive way so that we the entirety of SPRING and idea behind it, and that its presence
bring value to the society, it does appeal to many of our em- itself urges the sustainability work at IT consultancy firm for-
ployees and especially the younger ones, but then there are of ward. However, two respondents said that the process is too
course people who think it is only mumbo jumbo kind of, and complicated, and need to be simplified or further explained as
then I think they have not really understood it, and that is in the following quote:
something I sometimes meet within the company.” (R1) ”So, I think the whole idea behind it is great, but on the
This might indicate that there are some ‘tech-culture’ mem- other hand, I don’t believe they have succeeded in making it
bers at the IT consultancy firm a well. This respondent also simple and understandable, I think there’s much left to be done
pursued the issue with lack of data. Often, because they are a there.” (R4)
consultancy firm, they don’t have access to all the data that Another aspect that two respondents highlighted was that
relates to a product or service that they contribute to. It could distributing the SPRING process and its purpose outside of
be because they sometimes are not involved in an entire pro- strategic advice services has not succeeded fully as exemplified
ject, only parts of it, or that they don’t have access to data about by R2:
how a product or service is used. This then makes it harder for ”We have not really succeeded in anchoring this with eve-
them to address the right issues, or going deep enough into ryone else at [the IT consultancy firm] […]there are some very
issues. good thoughts behind this and we talk about it, but there isn’t
always a match perhaps on how we view things, and we might
E. Formalizing a process - SPRING
need to revise the SPRING document compared to today, and
Just before the interview study presented in this paper was the process, in order to do it more clear” (R2)
done, the IT consultancy firm had started to formulate a new Moreover, two respondents expressed that the customer
more formalized process for their strategic advice services. The value is not clear enough, and need to be further developed to a
process, called Digital Sustainability - Global Sustainability as more tangible value.
a Driver for Innovation and Growth, also referred to as ”Well, sometimes it is hard to explain to them, the value of
SPRING, was finished during the winter of 2017/2018 in the it. It is like, when we come to them and talk about digitalization
form of a white paper [33]. This white paper contains a descrip- and sustainability and such, then it can be as if they are on a
tion of a process the strategic advice services are expected to totally different level, and we have to start to, like, lift the dis-
use when providing a digital sustainability offer to a client. The cussion a bit before we can even start to talk about this pro-
whole process has at the writing of this paper, been piloted in cess.” (R6)
one project. An overview of the process is displayed in Fig. 5. Other than this, there was one respondent who argued that
the process is not too difficult, but that it needs to be imple-
mented into the strategic advice service processes.
V. DISCUSSION
This paper has reported results from an exploratory case
study of an IT consultancy firm, with the aim to explore how
sustainability concerns can be integrated into the work process-
es, and the opportunities and challenges of doing so.
The IT consultancy firm in this study has worked with CSR
and sustainability for a long time, and communicate widely
their sustainability engagement. Compared to many other com-
Fig. 5. An Overview of the SPRING process from [14] panies in the industry, they have a high profile as a sustainabil-
ity engaged company, and have the reporting track record to
Three of the respondents (R2, R4, and R5), have been in-
back it up. As a consultancy firm, they have the possibility to
volved with the creation of the SPRING process. These three
work with clients cross-industry, and hence have a high poten-
respondents, as well as respondent R3, were all involved in the
tial to use ICT as an enabler to reduce impact in other sectors
pilot project at some stage. Respondent R3 expressed that the
[22] or in other words to work with Sustainability through ICT,
process seemed interesting when reading about it, but since
reaching larger impact than just greening their own internal
he/she was only part of one stage of the pilot project it was not
ICT use. Furthermore, the top-down management approach,
enough to understand it fully, as in this quote:
with a highly engaged owners and top managers, strengthen the
ongoing work of introducing more sustainability focus in their However, since the interviews indicated that measuring impact
work processes. Although, there are a few challenges facing the is somewhat lacking today, there is room for improvement. It
company. might not always be possible to measure all projects quantita-
tively, but by setting indicators and goals early on in a project
A. Unclear process
they will have the possibility to communicate what kind of
The sustainability work has evolved over the years, and change or impact that their projects are striving for. That could
new metrics, frameworks and ideas have been added to the be a way of making their contributions more credible [30]. By
earlier efforts. An example of this is the SDGs, that have been refining or applying the above discussed steps, the process of
added on top of the Sustainability Effects presented in Table II. creating and communicating technical solutions within the digi-
Furthermore, the Net Positive approach has also been added to tal sustainability offer would be improved.
the mix, without removing, or aligning this with what was there 2) Clarifying Net Positive
earlier. The Net Positive approach is still rather new and not widely
Considering the six main sustainability effects that the IT adopted in industry, which can be considered both an ad-
consultancy firm contribute to (Table II), it is not clear which vantage and a disadvantage. It can communicate that the IT
effects are prioritized or to which effects most effort is put in consultancy firm is at the forefront of sustainable business
to. As an example, the energy saving effect lies within the work leading to being approached by sustainability engaged
scope of sustainable ICT. Dematerialization and as a service is companies and organizations, at the same time as it to some
more aligned with sustainability through ICT, which has a might seem complex and unproven. Another drawback is that
greater potential of affecting the environment than sustainabil- measuring the impacts of a Net Positive approach is not neces-
ity in ICT [14]. None of the respondents acknowledged these sarily easy. Good practice for measuring is still developing, and
two perspectives of ICT and sustainability, and it has not been there are guidelines in Measuring Net Positive [11] that could
displayed as a parameter or indicator during any of the process- be helpful.
es for their digital sustainability offer. Adding this parameter to In the interviews it became clear that the IT consultancy
their processes might make it possible for the IT consultancy firm had not communicated to their employees how to set indi-
firm to consciously focus more on sustainability through ICT cators for measuring Net Positive impact. The measurement
projects. does not necessarily have to be quantitative, and cannot always
The strategic advice service is today carried out with an aim be presented in such a way either. A few basic questions for
of considering both SDGs and Net Positive, but the interviews increased transparency for companies when reporting Net Posi-
showed that this was approached differently by different people tive are the following: What has changed? What was the base-
(as in the reported approach 1 and 2). The more formalized line? Has the problem shifted elsewhere (rebound and dis-
SPRING process has been developed, but not widely tested and placement)? How long will the benefit continue into the future
spread in the whole organization. The interviews also showed before it is replaced (drop-off/future benefits)? [11]. Using
that although the SPRING process is detailed, it is still not con- these indicators when creating and evaluating a technical solu-
crete enough. There is a need to clarify and break down the tion that the IT consultancy firm has provided to a client would
different steps, and the connection to both SDGs and Net Posi- improve the credibility of the product/service.
tive, better. Another aspect to consider is wherein which area a compa-
1) Clarifying the Sustainable Development Goals ny, or a project in the IT consultancy firm’s case, should focus.
To increase the credibility of the assessment process used There are five of these areas presented in Measuring Net Posi-
within strategic advice services, it could be beneficial to use the tive; carbon (including energy), water, social, material use (in-
Sustainable Development Goals Compass [30]. There are five cluding forestry and waste), and ecological (including agricul-
steps, where step one, that includes understanding the business ture and biodiversity) [11]. The relevance of these areas will
opportunities and challenges, is already accomplished by the depend on what kind of projects the IT consultancy firm en-
current process. Step two (defining priorities) could be applied gages in, and should be implemented and considered as impact
to any project that the IT consultancy firm is involved in. This measurement points during the strategic advice service pro-
step involves mapping the value chain to identify impact areas, cesses. This can increase credibility, both with clients and the
select indicators and collect data, and thereafter define to which general public.
goals a company will have the greatest impact. The third step
involves setting goals, that are measurable and time-bound. B. Data as a challenge and opportunity
This is also a step that could aid the IT consultancy firm in de- One challenge to the IT consultancy firm (and any consul-
veloping their work with the Sustainable Development Goals tancy) in their digitalisation and sustainability work, is the lack
further. Furthermore, by adding the indicators connected to this of data access. Even if the IT consultancy firm aims to contrib-
step, it should be easier to communicate impacts. The fourth ute to sustainability effects such as energy savings and products
step, integrating the goals within the organisation, is something or services with a positive effect on the environment, how will
that the IT consultancy already attempts to do. The fifth and they be able to prove this if they do not have long term access
final step is about reporting and communicating progress. This to their clients’ data? Although it is not possible to measure
is also done by the IT consultancy firm to some extent, by link- everything quantitatively, there are still possibilities to indicate
ing projects to specific goals in their sustainability report. positive changes. An area where the IT consultancy firm could
engage in, is business to business data sharing with other com- D. Future work
panies. This would correspond to changing the rules as argued This study has been an exploratory case study, based on in-
by Dyllick and Muff [26] Today, it is most common that busi- terviews with respondents within the IT consultancy firm
ness to business data is shared and re-used within the same working with sustainability. As such, the results are applicable
sector, and the most common data to be shared is that which is in other settings, but perhaps not yet generalizable. A natural
generated by internal IT business systems and Internet of extension to this work would be to not only focus on internal
Things [13]. According to [13] the concept of business to busi- respondents, but to also interview clients of the IT consultancy
ness data sharing is not yet commonly understood. The study firm. Furthermore, the focus has been on the early stages of
claims that companies that engage in this kind of data sharing strategic advice services, and the work can be extended by
are not giving away complete datasets or lose “data ownership” looking at later phases of the process.
rights, but they allow third-parties to get involved with the pro- One thing that often lacks in sustainability work and initia-
cess. The third-party might be involved as intermediaries or as tives in practice is how to make actions and results tangible
enablers. Both technical and legal skills are of significant im- enough. This is something that needs to be further investigated
portance if engaging in business to business data sharing [32], and explored. There is a need for longer studies that focus on
but if the IT consultancy firm were to establish that kind of specific projects from the start to finish, and even further than
competence this could be a way of accessing more data. that. A possible obstacle with this is that actual environmental
C. Tech-culture and maturity impacts may not be apparent until years after a product or ser-
vice has been implemented. One way of approaching this could
Despite the high engagement of management, and despite
be to investigate both short- and long-term impacts. Another
sustainability being on the agenda within the company for a
aspect that should be explored further is how to agree on meas-
long time, there is still issues in spreading this focus within the
urements cross-industry, or at least within same industry.
organization. In the interviews it was mentioned that the
Without a generally accepted and adopted language and meas-
SPRING process had not spread through the organization, and
urement indicators it is difficult to compare different results.
that there are still employees that do not understand the value
Hopefully, further work with business to business data sharing
of working with the SDGs and Net Positive. Furthermore, there
might contribute to general measurement indicators being
were respondents that alluded to a ‘tech-culture’, within the
adapted.
company as well as in the industry in general, which prioritizes
technological development above sustainability concerns, VI. CONCLUSIONS
which can be compared to the Cornucopian paradigm described
The aim of this paper has been to explore how sustainabil-
by Preist et al. [20]. Addressing this tech-culture might be the
ity concerns can be integrated into the work processes of IT
biggest challenge for the IT consultancy firm, since the sustain-
consultancy firm, exploring both opportunities and challenges.
ability processes, goals and aims otherwise may be circum-
As such, the IT consultancy firm in the study has already been
vented in the daily practice. This could be compared to the fo-
integrating sustainability in its processes, and is underway to
cus on computational thinking pervasive in computing educa-
further integrate it. There are opportunities in using the SDGs
tion and practice [34], which delimits the focus of computing to
and Net Positive to drive their strategic advice services, alt-
only address solvable problems without considering widened
hough more clarifications are needed, as well as more work to
system boundaries. Besides this being a problem adherent to IT
spread the process within the organization. A potential threat to
companies, or tech industry, it is also a strong discourse in so-
this work is a tech-culture, both within the company and within
ciety in general [21]. In the light of maturity models and the
the industry, which may resist sustainability work. Further-
Business Sustainability Typology, the highest level is when an
more, lack of data and measurement might undermine the sus-
organization has gone through a shift in perspective - placing
tainability focus effort pushed by the IT consultancy firm, in
the societal and environmental concerns at the forefront instead
general, there is a need for more fact-based assessments of sus-
of profit. Or as argued by Dyllick and Muff, “[...] only a shift in
tainability effects.
organizational perspective, from inside-out to outside-in, will
allow a company to develop strategies and the business models ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
needed to make relevant contribution to overcome societal and
planetary challenge, thereby contributing to the common good” This paper is based on a Master of Science thesis report
[26, p. 168]. In such a shift, a majority of the employees must [35]. A warm thanks is extended to everyone involved in the
be engaged. To some degree, there are already high aims from work at the IT Consultancy Firm. A sincere thanks is also ex-
the top management to shift the company towards having so- tended to the anonymous reviewers who gave constructive
cietal and environmental concerns as a top priority. But being a comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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