ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of Information Technology (IT) in enabling companies to become more environmentally and socially sustainable under SSBS. First, the chapter defines Information Systems as a combination of technological IT components, business processes, and people that enable companies to collect, process, organize, and distribute data. The chapter then introduces a framework of categories (automate, informate, transform, and infrastructure) of companies’ investments in IT-enabled business initiatives, which are a combination of IT and business assets and capabilities that are aimed at providing new capabilities targeted at enabling specific business operational activities. The chapter then discusses the four-quadrant integrated sustainability framework (internal-today, external-today, internal-tomorrow, and external- tomorrow) and how different types of IT-enabled business initiatives could enable companies’ sustainability strategy within each quadrant.
