Sustainability Informatics A new Subfield of Applied Informatics?

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1 EnviroInfo 2008 (Lüneburg) Environmental Informatics and Industrial Ecology Sustainability Informatics A new Subfield of Applied Informatics? Stefan Naumann 1 Abstract Environmental Informatics is a well established part of Applied Informatics and shapes important contributions to enhance environmental protection. However, the latter field has been undertaken several developments in direction to Sustainable Development (SD) in the last years. SD extends environmental protection and comprises also questions of economy and society. Consequently, it is necessary to discuss if it is useful to establish a subfield called Sustainability Informatics. 1. Introduction Sustainable Development (SD) plays an important part in several fields of Applied Informatics. However, up to now there exists no connected research field which links Environmental Informatics e. g. with fields like Information Systems and Social Informatics. However, within the field of Environmental Informatics developments in direction of to sustainability were early discussed [Page/Hilty 1995, Rolf 1995]. In this paper we want to give a definition for Sustainable Informatics and outline a possible structure of this research field. Fig. 1: Sustainability Informatics and its relation to other fields of Applied Informatics Definition of Sustainability Informatics: Sustainable Informatics is a subfield of Applied Informatics. It contains research and development of those methods, models, hardware, and software systems, which contribute to the goals of Sustainable Development. This includes the analysis and forecast of observed phenomena of the natural and social environment. It includes also the design of hardware, software, and in- 1 University of Applied Sciences Trier, Location Umwelt-Campus Birkenfeld, Institute for Software Systems in Business, Administration, and Environment 384

2 formation systems which supports Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development is hereby understood as a development which meets today's needs of human beings and society without compromising future generations' ability to develop [World Commission 1991:43]. Figure 1 depicts the relationship of Sustainability Informatics to other fields of Applied Informatics. 2. Grass Roots of Sustainability Informatics One of the first mentions of the German term of Sustainability Informatics ( Nachhaltigkeitsinformatik ) is known from discussions and seminars within the department of informatics in the University of Hamburg in In written form Nachhaltigkeitsinformatik was mentioned first by [Möller/Bornemann 2005, Naumann 2006]. Today ( ), a Google search of Sustainability Informatics delivers 78 results, Nachhaltigkeitsinformatik yields to 7 results. However, the grass roots of Sustainability Informatics date back a longer time. From the point of view of the application field the Rio conference was a big step to extend environmental questions with problems of society, economy, and development [World Commission 1991]. Consequently, [Page/Hilty 1995, Rolf 1995] discussed how Environmental Informatics could be developed into the direction of Sustainable Development. A broader discussion began with the conference Environmental Informatics 2001 in Zurich [Hilty/Gilgen 2001], where for example energy consumption of ICT, implications for the society and other topics beyond pure Environmental Informatics were discussed. Within this spirit several books and articles were published, e. g. [Schneidewind et al. 2000, Hertin/Berkhout 2002, Angrick 2003, Dompke et al. 2004]. An overview with more articles can be found in [Naumann 2006:47ff]. As well, broader approaches for the field of informatics and society are available. They often contain questions of sustainability, but do not focus on them. An example for a model that analyses mutual reactions between human beings, organisations, environment, and society is the Mikropolis-Modell (see e. g. [Naumann et al. 2005, Krause et al. 2006]). These models can be classified into the context informatics and society and are very valuable to structure research questions and put them into practice. 3. Structuring the Field Sustainability Informatics We suggest three main focuses within the research field: 3.1 Analysing the Application Domain The first focus of the research field comprises the analysis of natural and social phenomena by means of IT. It covers methods to model and simulate observations and measurements within environment, business, and society. Especially methods of the Environmental Informatics field are suitable to analyse natural processes. These methods allow to model and to simulate e. g. climate change, pollutant dispersals, or other dynamic systems [Page/Hilty 1995]. Beyond these analyses of the natural environment also phenomena and effects in the fields of economy and society are worth to be investigated. These fields are often connected with questions of environment and sustainability. For example Online Communities have an increasing influence on consumer decisions and business processes. They also enable new forms of social movements, which influence Sustainable Development. 385

3 3.2 Analysing and Classifying the Impacts of ICT The second focus covers the effects of ICT itself. However, every artificial and technical system influences human behaviour, society, and environment. Because ICT has a double role as a measuring and as a design instrument, these effects have to be considered carefully. A popular categorization differs between direct effects, indirect effects, and structural and behavioural effects of ICT [Schneidewind/Fleisch 1996, Hertin/Berkhout 2002, Dompke et al. 2004]. With this categorization intended and unintended effects of ICT on human beings, society, economy, and environment can be investigated. These impacts can also be subsumed under the broader discussion of technological impact assessment research (see e. g. [Klischewski 1992]). 3.3 Design of Software Systems The third focus of Sustainability Informatics should contain questions how ICT can be designed to foster Sustainable Development. This comprises all aspects of hardware and software development, usage, and disposal. Since the hardware sector and its Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) are actually broadly discussed, there are several open-ended questions how software systems can contribute or contradict to Sustainable Development. E. g. the new operating system Vista from Microsoft requires so much system resources that it is often necessary to upgrade the hardware when updating the software (see e. g. [Greenpeace 2007]). Positive examples are software systems and algorithms which reduce directly or indirectly power consumption and environmental pollution. However, these approaches can be subsumed under the term Sustainable Software Engineering [Naumann 2006]. Here we can distinguish between sustainability of the software system itself, so-called system-bounded sustainability. This comprises quality aspects of software like maintenance options, documentation, and usability. Overall sustainability, or systemunbounded sustainability, comprises mutual reactions between software and ecological, economical, and social systems. Up to now, it is not common to ask if software is environmentally friendly and socially acceptable in production and usage. Therefore it must be discussed in detail what e. g. sustainable software design means. To do this, it is of course important to take a look at the purpose of the software. For example, if software manages articles within a shop or an enterprise resource planning system it may be useful to integrate functions in order to evaluate environmental compatibility of the stored articles. 4. Research Agenda If a new or partially new research field is identified it will be helpful to set up a research agenda. However, looking at Environmental Informatics as an important fundament of Sustainability Informatics, there are only a few papers which focus on a theoretical background. Especially in Information Science [Whitman / Woszczynski 2004], but also in Social Informatics [Kling 1999] much more papers are available which discuss research paradigms, methods, and frameworks. Because Sustainability Informatics tries to bundle existing research fields and does not try to substitute them it is useful to start with a few steps to sharpen this new research field. It can be expected that a holistic view onto these different areas yields to new questions. One might be What makes software sustainable? Regarding the described structure of Sustainability Informatics we suggest three main areas to develop a research agenda. At first, some theoretical foundations are useful. Secondly, we have to investigate empirical and analytical methods. Thirdly, it is suggestive to examine the options how Sustainability Informatics and its methods and frameworks can be applied to address real-world problems. 386

4 4.1 Developing Theoretical Foundations All applied research fields in informatics have to consider both involved areas in a transdisciplinary or interdisciplinary way. In our case, this is the field of sustainable development as well as somewhat we might call Core Informatics, which comprises theoretical, practical, and technical informatics. Sometimes this circumstance yields to the problem that pure disciplinary research fields discuss those applied and interdisciplinary research fields with a smile and do not accept their results as part of scientific progress. And especially Sustainability Informatics consists of two relatively new areas, which are also discussed regarding their real relevance for science. Consequently, it is necessary to define clear criteria and scientific frameworks to sharpen Sustainability Informatics. A first step should be to take a look at the theoretical foundations of the two areas concerned. Here some theoretical foundations about Sustainable Development (see e. g. [Tremmel 2004, Grunwald/Kopfmüller 2006] and Informatics / Computer Science might be helpful. Especially in subfields like Environmental Informatics and Sustainability Informatics it is important to make clear which contributions they make to the discipline Core Informatics. Looking at the proceedings of the Environmental Informatics conferences sometimes the impression is given that computer science is just an assistive mean to gain results in the application area. The results for theoretical, practical, or technical informatics are seldom discussed. However, one problem might be that informatics itself is permanent in discussion: Is informatics just applied mathematics, is it a real-world science, is it a work science etc. (for a broader discussion see e. g. [Floyd / Klaeren 1999]). 4.2 Analytical and Empirical Methods, Design of Software Systems Following the suggested structure of Sustainability Informatics with analysis, impacts, and design questions it is reasonable to identify methods along these essential points. In order to collect methods of the different concerned fields at first we can look at existing methods and method frameworks. Some of these methods are (see e. g. [Whitman / Woszczynski 2004]):! Empirical studies and surveys! Action research! Case study research! Modelling and simulation! Models for software architectures, process models, reference models 1! Development and evaluation of software systems! Life Cycle Assessment for software systems Additionally, checklists and guidelines would be helpful in order to design software systems for sustainability. 5. Conclusions Sustainability Informatics can be understood as an advancement of Environmental Informatics. The Brundtland commission emphasized the fact that protection of the environment cannot be divided from questions of social justice and economical developments. Of course, Environmental Informatics is an important core of Sustainability Informatics. But it is also necessary to continuously extend it in order to address other questions regarding Sustainable Development. 1 E. g. the field of Information Systems has a method called reference modelling which is often called a master discipline, because it subsumes several techniques of IS 387

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