Integrating Environmental and Information Systems Management: An Enterprise Architecture Approach

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 its information system (IS) and as a result the management does not have timely access to (appropriately aggregated) environmental information. This chapter argues for the benefit of integrating the environmental management (EM) project into the ongoing 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, the organisation and its IS in order to achieve a much needed synergy.