Title: Sustainability through information systems: how can information systems lead to sustainable business models?

Authors: Wail El Hilali; Abdellah El Manouar

Addresses: National Higher School for Computer Science and System Analysis, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco ' National Higher School for Computer Science and System Analysis, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco

Abstract: Sustainability is the quest of almost every company nowadays. The rise of awareness, the willingness to reinforce the brand image and to cut costs are the main drivers that push companies to invest in this field. Finding a way to reduce environmental impact and to boost social prints without impacting revenues is the ultimate goal to reach. Many researches were done in order to find the secret 'sauce' to achieve sustainability including the adaptation of the business models. We propose to review in this article the most important ways adopted in order to reach this equilibrium. We focus after on business models and suggest a new way of thinking by using the power of information systems to reach sustainability. We introduce later the DEMATEL method to highlight the dynamics and the mutual impacts created by the business models' elements while trying to find the equilibrium between the economy, the society and the environment. We apply this approach on the case of a telecom operator in Morocco.

Keywords: sustainability; business models; information systems; sustainable business models; green IT; DEMATEL.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2020.105160

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2020 Vol.33 No.2, pp.225 - 249

Received: 19 Dec 2017
Accepted: 12 Apr 2018
Published online: 14 Feb 2020 *

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