Green Business Process Management. Usage of Existing and New Tools for Achieving the Ecological Goals

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Computer Science - Commercial Information Technology, grade: 2.3, University of Münster, language: English, abstract: The aim of this work is to find relevant approaches of Green Business Process Management (BPM) and analyse them with regard to their purpose. It was considered whether the approaches are extensions of the traditional BPM concepts adapted to the ecological dimension or if they are newer techniques and tools introduced by the rise of Green Information Systems (IS). In order to achieve this goal, the basic concept of BPM and its way towards more sustainability is presented at the beginning followed by the explanation of current approaches. Afterwards, the BPM Lifecycle, which serves as a suitable framework to allocate the different tools and techniques, is introduced. Based on the rough presentation, the main part deals more intensively and in more detail with the tools and techniques of Green BPM approaches. These tools and techniques were mapped into an adapted (Green) BPM Lifecycle so that relevant implications could be derived in the discussion section. But first, the mentioned tools and techniques are classified according their field of acting. Finally, the discussion part takes place where the major contributions are analysed and interpreted according to the observed results and background knowledge. Companies have been looking at sustainability for several decades, recognizing that by reducing pollution they can also maximize their profits. Thus, sustainability in the field of Information Systems (IS) is becoming increasingly important as topics like Green IS and IT are addressed. These deal with the reduction of IT consumption and emissions because of the implementation of more sustainable business activities. However, this raises the requirement for approaches in the field of Business Process Management. Research and practice lacked an appropriate approach to connect these two areas of Green IS and BPM, which is why the notion of Green Business Process Management was introduced. Experts are developing instruments and techniques whose primary objective is to integrate sustainability into the different phases of the business process Lifecycle so that more ecological processes can be realized. Such approaches help organizations in defining their optimal business strategies regarding the four dimensions of time, quality, flexibility, cost and now adding the aspect of environment.