Marco Marabelli, Bentley University

Robert Davison, City University of Hong Kong

Federico Iannacci, University of Sussex

Shahla Ghobadi, University of Leeds

Zhongyun Zhou, Tongji University

Vanessa Cooper, RMIT University

This special issue examines how information systems scholarship can address environmental concerns related to generative AI. While GAI offers significant benefits for efficiency and automation, its rapid development has created substantial environmental challenges, including high electricity consumption, water use for cooling, and electronic waste from obsolete computing hardware. These impacts disproportionately affect vulnerable populations and regions in the Global South.

The issue seeks studies adopting an eco-socio-technical perspective to explore both the negative environmental effects of GAI and its potential benefits for weather forecasting, agriculture, and urban management. Contributors are encouraged to investigate how organizations, governments, individuals, and communities can implement and use GAI responsibly, examining tradeoffs between technological benefits and environmental costs. Research employing primary data, various methodologies, and practitioner perspectives are welcomed.

Appel publié par Information Systems Journal. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Local and global policies associated with data centers, outsourcing, and offshoring practices, including legal, managerial, and economic perspectives
• Business models relying on or incentivizing GAI across specific industries such as healthcare, automotive, robotics, and aerospace, focusing on efficiency versus responsible use tradeoffs
• Individual-level practices of responsible GAI use in organizational and private citizen contexts, and how users understand environmental consequences
• GAI applications in smart cities, including traffic and parking optimization while addressing surveillance concerns
• GAI use in public administrations to streamline processes such as document production and benefit eligibility checks
• Existential short-term and long-term eco-socio-technical effects and the role of IS discipline in mitigating environmental and societal risks from large-scale GAI diffusion
• Collective action and activism strategies for promoting green development and responsible GAI use by major technology developers and deployers

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline for extended abstracts
• June 30, 2027: Submission deadline for full papers