Digital Decarbonization: Design Principles for an Enterprise-wide Emissions Data Architecture

Abstract

The need for corporate decarbonization to mitigate climate change is reflected in a growing number of political measures to transparently disclose the environmental impact of corporate activities. Due to increasing reporting obligations, companies must constantly evaluate their own as well as suppliers' products and processes with respect to emissions data. To date, guidelines on how to design a data architecture focusing on the collection, storage, transformation, distribution, and disclosure of emissions data throughout an entire company are still lacking. Working with the design science research paradigm, we develop seven design principles for an enterprise-wide emissions data architecture (EEDA). We develop and iterate these principles by performing a structured literature review and semi-structured interviews. Taking this emission-centric perspective on data architecture, we foster the active engagement for a structured enterprise-wide approach for managing emissions data and coping with the increased demand for emissions reporting.