Integrating a Method for Achieving Activity-Oriented Sustainability into the Design Science Research Methodology

Klör Benjamin, Chasin Friedrich, Becker Jörg

Abstract
Sustainability increasingly becomes an effective argument in the public and academic discourse. However, in the scientific design process of IT artifacts, the notion of sustainability is often misused. IT artifacts and consequences resulting from their operation are characterized to be sustainable without truly reflecting the meaning of the characteristics of sustainability. By subscribing to a view of sustainability as a characteristic of an activity, we propose a method for the systematic integration of sustainability into the design of IT artifacts. Our so-called "activity-oriented sustainability method" is situated within the design science research methodology (DSRM) and allows to perform an ex-ante domain-specific sustainability analysis of activities, which are supported by an IT artifact. This article contributes to research and praxis by spurring discourse on the consideration of sustainability in design research endeavors and by providing a method for the systematic integration of sustainable activities into IT artifacts.

Keywords
Activity-Oriented Sustainability; Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM); Method Engineering; Electric Vehicle Domain; Green IS