The Effects of 'Green' on IT/S Projects: Recycling the Garbage Can Model

In recent years, environmental sustainability has become an important management consideration. Yet, despite the ability of information technology and systems (IT/S) to lower organizations' negative environmental impacts, research has shown that the inclusion of "green" elements in IT/S projects is still relatively rare. In order to better understand how green considerations affect the formation and outcomes of IT/S projects, we extend the "Garbage Can Model" of decision making. Specifically, we use agent-based modeling to study the complexities associated with making decisions in an IT/S project context, incorporate individual, organizational, and external considerations for the environment, and add an objective function that selects projects "optimally" rather than randomly. By including these criteria in the IT/S project selection process, our findings reveal variations in the types of project decisions, and show when the inclusion of environmental considerations improves the financial and environmental benefits of the resulting project portfolio.