An Enterprise Architecture Approach towards Environmental Management

Environmental responsibility is fast becoming an important aspect of strategic management as the reality of climate change settles in and relevant regulations are expected to tighten significantly in the near future. Many businesses react to this challenge by implementing environmental reporting and management systems. However, the environmental initiative is often not properly integrated in the overall business strategy and as a result the management does not have timely access to appropriate environmental information. This paper argues for the benefit of integrating the environmental management (EM) project into the continuous enterprise architecture (EA) initiative present in all successful companies. This is done by demonstrating how a reference architecture framework and a meta-methodology using EA artefacts can be used to co-design the EM system and the organisation in order to achieve an appropriate synergy.