How can organizations systematically integrate environmental, social, and economic sustainability into IT service management?

Host: Welcome to A.I.S. Insights — powered by Living Knowledge. I'm Anna Ivy Summers, and today we are discussing a study titled "Defining Green ITSM: A Taxonomy for Sustainable IT Service Management," authored by Larissa Koch de Souza and Martin Engstler, presented at ICIS 2026. Joining me is our analyst, Alex Ian Sutherland. Alex, this study addresses the intersection of IT service management and environmental sustainability.

Expert: That's right, Anna. As organizations accelerate digital transformation, IT services expand rapidly. However, that growth drives significant increases in energy consumption, carbon emissions, and electronic waste. While IT service management frameworks like ITIL guide service delivery, they have lacked a structured classification scheme for systematically integrating sustainability across the entire service lifecycle.

Host: So organizations have wanted to make their IT services greener, but lacked a common structure to define and guide those efforts. How did the authors address this problem?

Expert: The authors applied an established taxonomy development method. They combined two systematic literature reviews covering both academic literature and industry standards with interviews of IT practitioners and formal evaluations by academic experts. This iterative process ensured the classification reflects both formal research and operational practice.

Host: What is the formal definition of Green ITSM established in the study?

Expert: The study defines Green ITSM as the configuration of organizational beliefs, operational practices, and learning mechanisms within a specific management context to align IT services with ecological, economic, and social sustainability.

Host: To make that practical, they built a taxonomy. How is that structured?

Expert: It is organized around five meta-dimensions: Context, Belief, Action, Outcome, and Learning. Together, these encompass sixteen specific dimensions. Context covers external factors like regulations and industry sector. Belief captures organizational values, motivation, and leadership commitment. Action covers operational practices, aligned with core ITIL dimensions such as technology, suppliers, people, and value streams. Outcome tracks performance across economic, ecological, and social targets. Finally, Learning focuses on knowledge transfer and continuous improvement.

Host: Looking at the Action dimension, does the study classify different levels of organizational maturity or proactivity?

Expert: Yes. The taxonomy distinguishes three levels of proactive action. First is baseline compliance, which focuses on meeting mandatory regulatory requirements. Second is incremental enhancement, where teams optimize existing services for energy and resource efficiency. Third is anticipatory driving, where IT proactively shapes business models and customer practices to be inherently sustainable.

Host: The study also highlights governance mechanisms to address rebound effects. Could you explain what those are?

Expert: A rebound effect occurs when efficiency gains lower costs or resource intensity, which then leads to increased overall usage. To prevent this, the taxonomy highlights specific governance safeguards, such as budget caps on resource use, eco-by-default configurations in software and hardware deployments, and post-change sustainability reviews to verify actual environmental savings.

Host: What are the main business takeaways for CIOs and IT managers looking to use this knowledge?

Expert: IT leaders can use this taxonomy as a diagnostic and benchmarking tool. By assessing their current state across the sixteen dimensions, organizations can identify gaps, move beyond superficial green claims, and establish a clear implementation roadmap. It enables companies to embed sustainability criteria directly into everyday processes like hardware procurement, software design, and supplier contracts.

Host: It provides a structured, common language to bridge corporate sustainability goals with technical IT operations.

Expert: Exactly. It translates high-level environmental commitments into measurable operational routines.

Host: That provides IT leaders with clear guidance. Thank you, Alex, for breaking down this study, and thank you to our listeners for joining us on A.I.S. Insights — powered by Living Knowledge. Join us next time for more practical discussions on technology and business research.