The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts

Graf-Drasch, Valerie; Keller, Robert; Meindl, Oliver; Röhrich, Felix Article — Published Version The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts Business & Information Systems Engineering Provided in Cooperation with: Springer Nature Suggested Citation: Graf-Drasch, Valerie; Keller, Robert; Meindl, Oliver; Röhrich, Felix (2023) : The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts, Business & Information Systems Engineering, ISSN 1867-0202, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, Wiesbaden, Vol. 65, Iss. 5, pp. 521-538, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-023-00821-y This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/312244 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ RESEARCH PAPER The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts Valerie Graf-Drasch •Robert Keller •Oliver Meindl •Felix Ro ¨hrich Received: 22 June 2022 / Accepted: 30 May 2023 / Published online: 12 July 2023 The Author(s) 2023 Abstract Green information systems are often praised for their potential to foster sustainability in citizens’ daily lives and meet their needs. With this focus on citizens, districts that use smart technologies provide a litmus test, the results of which will indicate how to design smart green information systems that better meet the needs and desires of citizens. To date, however, guidelines on how to design such green information systems in urban areas or actively involve citizens in this process are few and far between. In recognition and remedy of this shortage, the study draws on the design science research paradigm to develop seven design principles for citizen-centric green information systems that can be used in sustainable smart districts. These principles are evaluated in 15 semi-structured interviews and a prototype of a mobile district app for a citizen-centric green information system is instantiated. By taking this citizen-centric perspective, the paper fosters the active involvement of humans in the design of sustainable urban environments. Keywords Sustainable smart districts Smart cities  Green information systems Sustainability Citizencentricity Design principles 1 Introduction In the highly charged discourse on climate change, cities are often caught in a problematic dichotomy: They are at once a partial cause of the problem and a significant element of the solution as they develop into smart cities. After all, smart cities have expedited sustainability transitions by implementing information and communication technologies (ICTs) in conjunction with smart energy technology (Gimpel et al. 2021; Kutty et al. 2020). The success of doing so has demonstrated that a sustainable smart city (SSC) can be a notable contributing factor to the attainment of the United Nations SDGs (Corbett and Mellouli 2017). Since smart cities are complex constructs, the involvement of citizens in their development can pose certain challenges. One way of resolving them is to use dedicated urban areas – i.e., districts – as testing grounds for new implementation strategies in light of which the most suitable smart services can be introduced at city-level with more acuity and efficiency (Brauer and Kolbe 2016; Ramaswami et al. 2016). While urban districts in general are designed to connect several buildings and green areas, sustainable smart districts (SSDs) are designed to support their citizens in efforts to live lives of greater (ecological) sustainability (Hosseini et al. 2018; Keller et al. 2019; Martin et al. 2019). An essential component of these efforts is the use of Green Information Systems (Green ISs) Accepted after four revisions by the editors of the special issue. V. Graf-Drasch R. Keller O. Meindl F. Ro ¨hrich FIM Research Center for Information Management, Augsburg, Germany V. Graf-Drasch O. Meindl Chair of Digital Management, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany V. Graf-Drasch R. Keller O. Meindl (&)F. Ro ¨hrich Branch Business & Information Systems Engineering of the Fraunhofer FIT, Augsburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] R. Keller Kempten University of Applied Sciences, Kempten, Germany F. Ro ¨hrich University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany 123 Bus Inf Syst Eng 65(5):521–538 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-023-00821-y (Bartelt et al. 2020; Corbett and Mellouli 2017; Velsberg et al. 2020). Green ISs are developed to allow individuals, groups, organizations, and society at large to continue engaging with information systems but to do so in new ways that foster the emergence and establishment of (eco-) sustainable practices (Watson et al. 2010). By and large, the literature published to date has taken a provider-centric smart city perspective which offers a holistic view of Green IS applications in cities and looks closely at the potential for synergies (Corbett and Mellouli 2017; Ismagilova et al. 2019). This often leads to a top-down approach (Angelidou 2017; Corbett and Mellouli 2017) that somewhat disregards the perspective of its users, at least in their immediate environment. Due to this distance from the lived reality of the citizens, the sustainability potential of Green ISs could not be fully leveraged (Keller et al. 2019), not until recently when bottom-up approaches started to evolve and the citizen perspective was taken into account (Becker et al. 2023; Harnischmacher et al. 2020). In efforts to bring Green ISs into closer alignment with the needs of citizens, there is a lot to be said for formulating and following guidelines for Green IS applications in SSDs (i.e., top-down or bottom-up). From an academic point of view, the best way of ensuring this is to formalize these guidelines into design principles (DP). DPs offer guidance for designers who have to negotiate a rather complex environment abounding with new possibilities for multiple stakeholders (Razmjoo et al. 2022; Rosemann et al. 2020). In this environment, as we have seen, bottomup DPs foster citizen-centricity when designing Green IS solutions for SSDs, and this benefits designers as much as citizens as the latter profit from a district design that considers their needs, which is why they are inclined to accept and indeed welcome necessary changes in the newly designed district (Graf-Drasch et al. 2022). To integrate the various established perspectives on citizen-centric Green ISs in SSDs, this study develops a number of overarching DPs. Hence, this study aims to facilitate the sustainable behavior of citizens with the help of citizen-centric Green ISs by answering the following research question: What are DPs for citizen-centric Green ISs within sustainable smart districts? Applying design science research (DSR) (Hevner and Park 2004), we formulated seven DPs (Gregor and Jones 2007). We derived the DPs by bilateral means: a systematic literature review and consultation with experts in SSDs, infrastructure, and social science. Given its adherence to the DSR paradigm, this study contributes to the theoretical work on design and action (Gregor 2006), its chief distinction being that the DPs developed in its context were subjected to rigorous testing in an iterative process until they came to represent prescriptive knowledge for the design of Green ISs in SSDs. Since IS designed in this manner can promote sustainable behavior among citizens, the contribution of this study is twofold: First, it advances research on Green ISs, specifically the strand of sustainable systems engineering (van der Aalst et al. 2023) by presenting a design theory that produces design knowledge in the form of operational guidelines for Green ISs in an SSD environment. Second, this study advances the practical development of Green ISs within SSDs by showing how to use the developed design guidelines in SSDs, including the prototype of a real-world instantiation in a German SSD. 2 Theoretical Background 2.1 Sustainable Smart Cities and Districts The switch to a perspective with a greater focus on the citizen brings us from SSCs to the concept of SSDs, a planning approach where the citizen-centric service perspective is particularly well aligned with the core idea of sustainability (Ahvenniemi et al. 2017; Graf-Drasch et al. 2022). As defined by Keller et al. (2019, p. 1404), an SSD is ‘‘a district performing in a forward-looking way in economy, people, governance, mobility, environment, energy, and living, built on a sophisticated, smart ICT infrastructure that ensures benefits for every stakeholder, in particular a high quality of life for every citizen.’’ In line with this definition, we see SSDs as integral, normative, and visionary subsystems of SSCs that bridge the gap between two sets of goals, the digital and the sustainable ultimately leading to a better quality of life (Martin et al. 2019). In this study, we place a special focus on residential SSDs to look at how they perform to the mutual benefit of citizens and other city stakeholders, such as investors and service providers (Bisello 2020). Many SSDs already implement sustainability-related projects, ranging from the creation of new mobility projects or the sharing of concepts to the smart use of renewable energy sources and collaboration platforms that allow citizens to connect with one another more efficiently (Cappellaro et al. 2020; Hamari et al. 2016; Hosseini et al. 2018). It is important to note, however, that these projects rely on adequate technology infrastructure (Keller et al. 2019), such as mobile apps that make it possible not only to connect ever more citizens digitally but to provide and process a growing range of services (Anttiroiko et al. 2014; Staletic ´et al. 2020). Other examples include smart meters and sensors that facilitate the meticulous tracking of energy consumption in individual households, while advanced algorithms or artificial intelligence can provide greater transparency of energy 123 522 V. Graf-Drasch et al.: The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts, Bus Inf Syst Eng 65(5):521–538 (2023) supply and demand (Bonenberger et al. 2021; Mazur et al. 2019). Yet, even if a district makes full use of such technology, it is insufficient to make life more sustainable. Indeed, there is a clear need for approaches that ensure meaningful integration of the various characteristics and requirements of technologies, services, and human beings. 2.2 Green ISs in Sustainable Smart Districts A subfield of ISs research, Green ISs can be defined as ‘‘information systems to transform organizations and society into more sustainable entities’’ (Seidel et al. 2017, p. 41). In this context, ‘sustainable’ denotes conserving, deploying, and reusing resources responsibly (Malhotra et al. 2013; Seidel et al. 2017). Green ISs are understood to have far greater potential to achieve this as they leverage advanced technology to provide services to individuals, groups, or organizations while keeping the focus firmly on sustainability-related goals (Watson et al. 2008; Schoormann and Kutzner 2020). Initially examined in 2007, Green IS research largely remains devoted to environmental sustainability, which is also strongly related to energy informatics (vom Brocke et al. 2013; Wang et al. 2015; Watson et al. 2010). These days, however, Green ISs are also appreciated for their ability to automate, inform, and transform processes in all areas of sustainability, be it by estimating energy consumption or providing guidance for behavioral change in line with the social perspective of an SSC (Brauer et al. 2015). For Green ISs to support sustainable actions within an SSD, it has to be planned, designed, implemented, and managed with in-depth understanding (Watson et al. 2008; Graf-Drasch et al. 2022; Melville 2010), and this understanding extends to its core constructs, as posited by Alter (2013). A summary of these constructs is presented in Fig. 1. It is worth pointing out that the workings of Green ISs are significantly affected by three contextual factors: environment, infrastructure, and strategy (Alter 2013). As for the internal dynamics of a Green IS, the interplay of services & processes and technologies & information among the district’s stakeholders – especially its citizens – has to be brought into close alignment to create benefits for all stakeholders (Bisello and Vettorato 2018; Corbett and Mellouli 2017). When this is achieved, the Green IS can support an SSD in reaching its sustainability-related goals, in the process of which it facilitates notable improvements to the citizens’ quality of life (Bisello and Vettorato 2018; Gimpel et al. 2021). Designing such a Green IS has proven to be a constructive research process, one by which to find an effective way of achieving the goals of SSDs (Hevner and Park 2004). Unlike in the corporate context, users who engage with IS in the urban context do not tend to rely on the one provided by a central authority as they go about their daily lives. Suppose, then, that the goal of a more sustainable lifestyle is to be reached by a critical mass of citizens within an SSD. In that case, it is essential to let citizens and stakeholders in the respective district participate in this research process. Indeed, the best results are achieved if they also participate in the co-creation of the Green IS (Golla et al. 2020). Dale ´n and Kra ¨mer (2017), for example, state that the attitudes and norms of individuals could be targeted with user-centered Green ISs. So far, however, many Green ISs have been pushed on citizens from the topdown, the main focus being firmly placed on introducing the technology itself without considering the needs or priorities of citizens (Trencher 2019). One unfortunate risk associated with this introduction strategy is that it can diminish citizen support, render the service provision within an SSD inadequate, or cause malfunctions, all of Fig. 1 Conceptual perspective on a Green IS in an SSD, building on the work of Alter (2013) 123 V. Graf-Drasch et al.: The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts, Bus Inf Syst Eng 65(5):521–538 (2023) 523 which can ultimately reduce the number of interactions and touchpoints (Graf-Drasch et al. 2022). 3 Method The following section covers the method by which our IS design science research approach provides the overdue prescriptive knowledge on how to design a Green IS in SSDs (Hevner and Park 2004). For the research and refinement of this method, we adopted the process model of Peffers et al. (2007) for its particular applicability to urban area contexts (Bastidas et al. 2021). This process model comprises six phases, those being I) problem identification, II) definition of design objectives, III) design & development, IV) demonstration, V) evaluation, and VI) communication (Peffers et al. 2007). Figure 2illustrates all phases of Peffers et al. (2007) alongside the main activities. Our method’s specific contribution is a nascent design theory that produces design knowledge in the form of operational principles and a situated implementation of a prototype, including its underlying architecture (Gregor and Hevner 2013). To rigorously demonstrate the high quality, utility, and applicability of our artifacts, we combined the IV) demonstration and V) evaluation phase and applied the established ‘framework for evaluation in design science’, as proposed by Venable et al. (2016). I) Problem Identification: Drawing on the expertise we developed in the observation of various real-world SSDs and dialogues with its stakeholders, we could identify the overarching DSR problem (i.e., lack of design knowledge on Green ISs in SSDs) and the respective research gap. In the Introduction, we addressed the need for prescriptive guidance to be provided for citizen-centric Green ISs within SSDs. In the Theoretical Background section, we further identified the lack of prescriptive knowledge for Green ISs within urban areas. II) Definition of Design Objectives: In recognition of the fact that a problem identified does not yield an objective for a design artifact (Peffers et al. 2007), we inferred our design objective based on our practical insights and knowledge of SSDs and Green ISs.In light of a thorough literature search, we then formulated our final design objective: ‘‘Develop DPs for citizen-centric Green ISs within sustainable smart districts to foster a sustainable way of life for its citizens.’’ We operationalized this design objective with three broad meta-requirements in Appendix B (available online via http://link.springer.com), which enabled us to gain a holistic understanding of the aspects currently amiss in IS, including those widely used in the urban context. Ultimately, it was this design objective (i.e., the design principles) that guided our prescriptive solution based on which new Green IS can be instantiated both in SSD projects and beyond. III) Design & Development: In this phase, we developed two main artifacts: 1) Seven holistic DPs and 2) a comprehensive prototype of a Green IS in SSDs. In developing our DPs, we took a supportive approach (Mo ¨ller et al. 2020). This involved a systematic literature review (vom Brocke et al. 2015; Wolfswinkel et al. 2013) the purpose of which was to extract prescriptive statements about citizencentric IS in urban areas, such as SSCs or SSDs. We then formulated our initial DPs in such a way as to serve as justificatory knowledge (Gregor and Jones 2007). We applied the search query (‘‘smart’’ AND ‘‘sustainable’’ AND (‘‘city’’ OR ‘‘district’’) AND (‘‘information system’’ OR ‘‘information technology’’ OR ‘‘information and communication technology’’) AND ‘‘citizen’’) to four established databases in the field of ‘information systems’, specifically AIS eLibrary, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, and Web of Science. This resulted in a total of 1806 hits over the past five years, a period in which the use of Green ISs has increased notably in the urban context. After removing 3 duplicates, we screened the resulting 1803 distinct research papers iteratively and narrowed them down by sequentially analyzing titles and abstracts with predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria (see Table 1). Papers were excluded if they did not meet at least one inclusion criterion or if one of the exclusion criteria Fig. 2 Research approach in accordance with Peffers et al. (2007) 123 524 V. Graf-Drasch et al.: The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts, Bus Inf Syst Eng 65(5):521–538 (2023) applied. Instances of such exclusions include Cortinovis et al. (2019), in whose consideration SSDs or SSCs do not play a significant role, and Massana et al. (2017), who elaborated on only one potential service of an IS. After this deselection, the sample of relevant papers stood at 78. To this, we added 5 papers newly discovered by means of forward and backward searches. Having read these 83 papers, we identified 44 of them as being of relevance to sustainable smart urban areas and/or the use of IS within these areas. Based on the papers we selected, we extracted a total of 210 prescriptive statements, which we subdivided into topic areas (see Appendix C). To do so, we exploratively used a natural language processing Python script with the Universal Sentence Encoder algorithm (Cer et al. 2018), capable of grouping the statements into 25 semantically similar clusters. By taking multiple iterative open and axial coding steps, we refined these clusters into 16 topic areas with a descriptive label (e.g., ‘‘[TA13] Big Data Analytics and Sources’’ or ‘‘[TA14] Data Management’’). After taking further axial coding steps and processing the results in refinement workshops within the research team, we were able to merge the topic areas into seven initial DP names. For instance, the topic areas ‘[TA13]’ and ‘[TA14]’ formed the DP name ‘[DP6] Exploitation of the full potential of district data’. We then articulated the seven initial DPs in accordance with the structure proposed by Gregor et al. (2020) to summarize the various manifestations of each statement in a meaningful way, specifically the aim, context, mechanism, rationale, and exemplary actions. See Appendix D for a detailed description of these coding steps, Appendix E for definitions of the 16 topic areas, and Appendix F for the seven initial DPs. After evaluating and refining these DPs, we developed the second artifact, the comprehensive prototype of a Green IS in SSDs. The same DPs also guided the design and development of a prototype for a citizen-centric Green IS prototype. The resulting mobile app is intended to be rolled out in two real-world SSDs in two German cities, Stuttgart and U ¨berlingen. To establish the required functionalities of this mobile app, we conducted two focus groups with SSD experts in the early stage of the mobile app development. The two focus groups comprised 9 and 11 experts, including city and SSD planners, SSD service providers, and sociologists. Doing so proved invaluable in that it allowed us to better tailor the prototype to the specific service needs of both districts. In due course, the prototype was iteratively and incrementally implemented in line with our DPs. IV ?V) Demonstration and Evaluation: The practical implications of the overarching problem called for a citizen-oriented design solution for SSDs. To demonstrate and evaluate our design artifacts, we took an outcome-oriented, practical perspective in pursuit of the aforementioned design objective (Peffers et al. 2018). This involved the use of the evaluation framework of Venable et al. (2016), rigor being our main evaluation goal. We deployed a human risk & effectiveness strategy with three evaluation episodes, each focusing on different evaluands and building on each other (see Table 2). To be clear, the evaluand represents the object of consideration, the properties of which are reviewed during an evaluation episode (Venable et al. 2016). This strategy allowed us to challenge our intermediate findings at an early stage and within naturalistic settings. It also allowed us to gradually improve our nascent design theory in the course of the project. VI) Communication: It is essential to communicate the problem as well as our two artifacts if the resulting design knowledge is to find the wide audience that stands to benefit from it (Peffers et al. 2007). For scholars, this paper provides an in-depth discussion of the search process and our main findings, manifested in seven DPs for citizencentric Green ISs in SSDs (also see Appendix A) and their prototypical instantiation in a mobile app. To extend the study’s reach to the relevant audience of practitioners, we communicated all of our (interim) findings to citizens and experts of the Stadtquartier 2050 project, be it in meetings, workshops, or face-to-face encounters. Table 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria for paper during the systematic literature review Inclusion Criteria Exclusion Criteria •Presents knowledge induced or abstracted from IS within SSCs or SSDs •Contains prescriptive design knowledge about IS, smart cities or districts supporting sustainable living •It deals with citizen- and inhabitant-centric decision support with a sustainability angle •Includes frameworks, models, taxonomies, or conceptualizations related to the smart city or district domain •Was published before 2016 (which means it does not discuss current IS relevant to SSDs) •Is a book, (extended) abstract, presentation, or research-in- progress paper •Is not written in English •Does not mainly focus on SSCs or SSDs •Focuses only one specific service of an IS 123 V. Graf-Drasch et al.: The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts, Bus Inf Syst Eng 65(5):521–538 (2023) 525 4 The Design of Citizen-Centric Green ISs in Sustainable Smart Districts 4.1 Design Principles In Table 3, we present our seven final DPs for Green ISs in SSDs, all of which were systematically derived from the literature and refined over the course of 15 interviews (see Evaluation Episode 2). The DPs are formulated in accordance with the conceptual scheme for DP, as proposed by Gregor et al. (2020). This scheme structures each DP in terms of title, aim, context, mechanism, and rationale. Specifically, the aim is what we want to achieve with the respective DP. The context clarifies the stage of the software cycle at which a given DP receives the greatest attention (Alter 2013). The mechanism denotes how a DP wants to achieve a given aim. The rationale answers the question as to why we should pay attention to a particular DP and which area of the current literature is most pertinent to it. To ensure better understanding and practical application, we detailed at least five exemplary actions concerning each DP (see Appendix A). These exemplary actions indicate which practical measures ought to be implemented for each DP. In the following, we provide a detailed description of the structural interdependencies between the various DPs. We also discuss the application of each at its particular stage of the implementation process. While the general focus of these DPs is on the nontechnological aspects of SSDs, DPs 1 to 4 are more qualitative in their specific focus, DPs 5 to 7 more technological. As we identify the relationships between the individual levels of these DPs and the literature that influenced their respective development, we expand on the content of Table 3and deal with the most pertinent issues noted by other academic researchers. DP 1 – Involvement of Citizens: The first DP is an integral aspect of a bottom-up approach to the human-centered design of Green ISs in SSDs (van der Bijl-Brouwer 2017). Involving citizens at the stages of initiation, development, and implementation of a Green IS brings its design into far closer alignment with the real needs of its users and the objectives of their districts (DP 2) (Kumar et al. 2020). Such active involvement can be beneficial at different stages of the SSD design. At the initiation stage, for instance, citizens can be involved to ensure that they identify their real needs before the focus of the development and implementation has a chance to shift away from the true purpose of the design. Once the active operation is underway, this involvement of citizens remains an important quality control measure as the feedback loop can keep the focus on their real needs and any necessary adjustments can be made accordingly (DP 3). Subsequently, say at the implementation stage, a designer can involve special target groups to account for the needs of various demographics and redirect efforts to the proper channels to ensure that the Green IS will integrate diverse perspectives (Renyi et al. 2019). It is worth noting, however, that Green IS designers might struggle with certain challenges arising from this involvement process. In most cases, designers must work with large groups of citizens, not all of whom will automatically understand the design process or appreciate how it may benefit them. This makes it all the more important to involve them as early as possible, allowing them to identify their concerns in light of which a healthy environment can be designed and redesigned accordingly. DP 2 – Realization of District Objectives: Modern urbanization has led to a complex fragmentation of cities into various districts that can differ in multiple ways, be it in terms of their infrastructure, their geography or, most importantly, their demographic. For instance, a district close to the city center may undergo transformation while being home to a hugely heterogeneous group of citizens from various social classes. Such districts tend to have objectives that differ significantly from newly developed districts in the suburbs of a city, where a typically rather wealthy and homogenous older population has taken up residence. Given these disparities, SSDs can have a host of highly differentiated objectives, all of which may have specific causal links to the particular characteristics of the respective district. At the same time, however, these SSDs are part of a larger city and its overarching objectives and values. Information systems must, therefore, meet a range of requirements to help the district achieve its individual objectives as well as the greater interests of the city (Bastidas et al. 2018; Heaton and Parlikad 2019). This, however, requires that the district objectives are known and Table 2 Three evaluation episodes, as per Venable et al. (2016) Episode Evaluand Evaluation Method Specific Setting 1) Design objective Theoretical arguments from thorough literature searches Formative, ex-ante, artificial 2) Design principles 15 interviews with experts from the fields of research and practice Formative, ex-post, naturalistic 3) Green IS prototype Presentation to various citizens and 16 experts Summative, ex-post, naturalistic 123 526 V. Graf-Drasch et al.: The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts, Bus Inf Syst Eng 65(5):521–538 (2023) that they have been formulated according to the needs and desires of the citizens. If sufficient attention is not paid to the latter, citizens are likely not to use the IS on a regular basis, nor are the potential uses of specific technologies likely to be fully explored (DP 5 & 6). SSDs mitigate this risk by combining top-down and bottom-up perspectives on a district level (Mora et al. 2019). It is advisable, therefore, that a Green IS in an SSD brings its use of various Table 3 The seven DPs for Green ISs in an SSD DP Name Aim Context (Stages) Mechanism Rationale Supporting Literature 1 Involvement of Citizens To foster a positive attitude to the Green IS among citizens, which should lead to a greater understanding and more extensive use Initiation, development, implementation Ensure appropriate involvement of citizens via active and goal-oriented participation Involving citizens makes it possible to integrate their perspective at an early stage and facilitates their positive attitude towards using the Green IS (Venkatesh et al. 2012) van der Bijl-Brouwer (2017); Heaton and Parlikad (2019); Renyi et al. (2019); Grotherr et al. (2020); Ji et al. (2021) 2 Realization of District Objectives To align technology and its use with the objectives of the respective district under careful consideration of any potential conflict of interest Initiation, development Derive Green IS requirements and realize district objectives Contextual factors (environment, strategies, infrastructure) that are specific to a district have to be considered in order to create an appropriate Green IS (Alter 2013) Bastidas et al. (2018); Ji et al. (2021); Bibri (2018a); Palumbo et al. (2021); Heaton and Parlikad (2019); Mora et al. (2019); Kumar et al. (2020); Majchrzak et al. (2018) 3 Response to the Feedback of Citizens To consider the feedback of citizens through an iterative process in order to improve the Green IS in response to their needs Operation Respond to new or changing needs by continuously collecting feedback from a sufficient number of diverse citizens Focusing on the needs of citizens makes it possible to foster a wider application of the Green IS and allow sustainability growth among citizens (Graf- Drasch et al. 2022) Kendel et al. (2017); Marsal-Llacuna and Segal (2016); Majchrzak et al. (2018); Keller et al. (2019); Bibri (2018a) 4 Adoption of a Holistic District Perspective To facilitate constructive interaction among essential district components Initiation, development, implementation, operation Understand the interdependencies of stakeholders, services, and technologies by adopting a holistic district perspective Broad perspectives prevent opinion silos and island solutions (Wang 2021) Palumbo et al. (2021); Allam and Dhunny (2019); Brauer and Kolbe (2016); Keller et al. (2019); Belanche et al. (2016) 5 Facilitation of a Flexible IT Architecture To run a scalable Green IS that supports continuous provision of services Development, operation Retain a stable and flexible IT architecture capable of dealing with shortterm shocks as well as long-term transformations A flexible and stable IT architecture supports innovation as well as systemic change (Jonkers et al. 2006) Bastidas et al. (2018); Ruutu et al. (2017); Del M. Esposte et al. (2019); Kumar et al. (2020) 6 Exploitation of the Full Potential of District Data To (re-)develop services with the help of data in order to tackle complex sustainability-related goals Initiation, Development, Implementation Explore and exploit any potential arising from the collected data within the district and beyond Analyzing big data sheds light on complex urban interdependencies (Bibri 2018b) Kumar et al. (2020); Bibri (2018a); Majchrzak et al. (2018); Keller et al. (2019); Lim et al. (2018); Ji et al. (2021) 7 Preservation of Privacy and Security To protect the digital and physical integrity of each citizen under consideration of legal and ethical issues Initiation, Development, Implementation, Operation Comply with current laws, regulations, and ethical standards to preserve privacy and (IT) security Upholding the fundamental freedoms of individuals supports them in living a selfdetermined life (European Commission 2016) Majchrzak et al. (2018); Keller et al. (2019); van Zoonen (2016); Vandercruysse et al. (2020); Lim et al. (2018) 123 V. Graf-Drasch et al.: The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts, Bus Inf Syst Eng 65(5):521–538 (2023) 527 technologies into alignment to overcome this challenge (DP 5 & 6) (Kumar et al. 2020). SSDs would then ensure accessibility across all ages and backgrounds (Majchrzak et al. 2018). DP 3 – Response to the Feedback of Citizens: The involvement of citizens should not end with the initiation of the Green IS, nor with its development and implementation. Indeed, it is crucial to involve them further, first to keep ascertaining their needs and then to improve the Green IS accordingly. The focus of this involvement, however, ought to change in the operation phase; from a design to an assessment perspective. This should happen for the entirety of the operation phase, during which a range of communication channels should remain open to ensure that multifaceted feedback can be received from a representative cross-section of the district’s citizen (Kendel et al. 2017; Marsal-Llacuna and Segal 2016). These communication channels should be set up to account for the district’s particular context and special attention ought to be devoted to reaching citizens who are not already using the Green IS, given that its development is an opportunity to convince as yet disconnected groups of the benefits of the Green IS. The SSD can collect such feedback with quantitative monitoring by using smart meters or similar technology (DP 6), or it can do so with more conventional qualitative approaches, such as district meetings (Hopf et al. 2018; Kumar et al. 2020; Palumbo et al. 2021). Crucial to note in this context is the associated workload for the respective administration, and this should not be underestimated. The survey, evaluation, and implementation of any adjustments will require resources in terms of staffing and financing. DP 4 – Adoption of a Holistic District Perspective: The designer in charge would be well advised to plan the Green IS for a connected district environment (Marsal-Llacuna and Segal 2016). An SSD is a complex construct of built infrastructure, diverse stakeholders, and various services (Keller et al. 2019; Palumbo et al. 2021). By designing the IS with an awareness of the interdependencies that exist between these district components, a Green IS can facilitate constructive interaction (Palumbo et al. 2021). What is more, by adopting a holistic district perspective from its initiation through its operation, the Green IS can leverage synergy effects and avoid island solutions that only work for specific services (Belanche et al. 2016; Palumbo et al. 2021). After all, an SSD connects a wide range of stakeholders, each of whom may wish it to serve a different purpose (Brauer and Kolbe 2016; Keller et al. 2019). Indeed, its many diverse stakeholders request a multitude of services while others provide just as many, including traditional housing services like waste disposal and more innovative ones such as car-sharing services (DP 1) (Brauer and Kolbe 2016). Since many of these depend on the SSD’s built infrastructure (Kendel et al. 2017), the specific objectives of a district, as defined in DP 2, must not be disregarded. Instead, a holistic perspective must take in the full complexity and conflicting goals of different stakeholders. This poses significant challenges in terms of feedback analysis. It also has notable implications for the ongoing re-prioritization of goals within the district. DP 5 – Facilitation of a Flexible IT Architecture: Given these potential peculiarities of an SSD, a Green IS requires a modular IT architecture to guarantee a scalable and reliable system for its services. Since a holistic perspective promotes interaction between the infrastructural levels (DP 5) (Bastidas et al. 2018), the current consensus in the academic community favors open interfaces in conjunction with approaches that facilitate data transferability (DP 6) (Ruutu et al. 2017). As those in charge of designing the Green IS lay the foundations for these requirements at the development stage, they are of major importance at the operation stage. It is worth remembering, however, how fast these requirements change, especially when dealing with an application in a built infrastructure, designed to last for a long time. It is, therefore, a considerable challenge to design the system in such a way that changing requirements can continue to be implemented meaningfully, even after years of use. DP 6 – Exploitation of the Full Potential of District Data: Due to the complexity of SSDs, the amount of data is high even in basic SSD systems. Given the rapid ongoing development of modern technologies and services, we can watch in real-time as this wealth of data increases further (Bastidas et al. 2018). There is, therefore, not only an urgent need for an adequate IT architecture, as described in DP 5. There is also a provision of various potential services and applications that can help us tackle the different challenges of an SSD. They may, for example, tap into the potential of DP 3 by meeting the need to monitor the use of the Green IS in order to collect valuable feedback for the improvement of the system and its services (Bibri 2018a). Doing so often requires real-time data sources, which opens possibilities for advanced data processing approaches, such as process mining, pattern recognition, and machine learning (Bastidas et al. 2018; Kumar et al. 2020). It is advisable, therefore, that the Green IS should integrate various data sources, both within the district and beyond (Ji et al. 2021; Lim et al. 2018; Wolff et al. 2020). The large amount of data thus generated requires the Green IS to have a robust data-management approach (Bastidas et al. 2018). DP 7 – Preservation of Privacy and Security: Privacy and security are key issues in the digital environment of an 123 528 V. Graf-Drasch et al.: The Design of Citizen-Centric Green IS in Sustainable Smart Districts, Bus Inf Syst Eng 65(5):521–538 (2023) context. Similarly, our prototype was developed for use in locations around Germany, a geographic limitation that could lead to problems when applying the DPs in different countries. The international background of our literature indicates that our DPs are usable in most Western civilizations, but this assumption will have to be evaluated in future research. Secondly, the vast number of districts meant that our DPs were formulated very broadly. When observing DP 2 at the stages of initiation and development, they will have to be adapted to suit the SSD under consideration. Future research could do so by using case studies for standardized district types and real-world implementations. Also worth noting here is that challenges remain with regard to achieving district goals (DP 2) in harmony with a holistic perspective (DP 4), and resulting interdependencies will have to be subject to future research. Thirdly, the prototype presented in these pages is an instantiation limited to the interests of citizens and does not involve service providers, utilities, or the city government. Furthermore, it is currently in the implementation phase where its focus is limited to ecological sustainability, without due attention being given to significant social aspects. At this early stage, we have no information on how the prototype’s approval rating among citizens will develop over time. Fellow researchers may, therefore, wish to evaluate our DPs in different cultural and national environments to ascertain their validity for a broad range of districts and a fully implemented, holistic prototype. A final important consideration to mention here is that the public sector exerts a notable influence on districts by means of regulation. Despite explicit demands voiced by the research community, contributions to the Green ISs literature are still few and far between, particularly with regard to the public sector perspective (Fernandez et al. 2020; Lehnhoff et al. 2021; vom Brocke et al. 2013). Since these calls have largely gone unheeded, many questions remain unanswered, particularly concerning the design of citizen-centered Green ISs in an urban context (Corbett and Mellouli 2017; Harnischmacher et al. 2020). Research in this area should help to appreciate how restrictions or incentives affect the design of Green ISs in SSDs. 7 Conclusion Our direct environments – the places where we live and work together – are changing significantly as humanity faces global challenges. With our seven holistic DPs for citizen-centric Green ISs within SSD, we provide a way to foster sustainability in the everyday lives of citizens, and in response to their real-life needs. To develop these seven DPs, we used a design science research approach in conjunction with a systematic literature review. We then evaluated these seven DPs using 15 semi-structured interviews with experts from research and practice. To demonstrate the DPs’ use in a realistic environment, we have provided a prototype of a citizen-centric Green IS, namely the ‘‘Stadtquartier 2050 Quartiers-App’’’’ mobile district app. This makes a contribution to both research and practice, specifically in the form of guidelines for the structured design of Green ISs in urban SSD environments. In contrast to the narrow focus of existing top-down approaches, these guidelines are informed by broader insights from the district perspective and the reflective process of actively involving citizens to gain a holistic view, one that considers the characteristics of multiple infrastructural peculiarities and stakeholders. May this encourage future research on the design of Green ISs in SSDs and SSCs, the benefit of which, one hopes, will be the development of urban environments that support lifestyles of much-needed sustainability. Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599- 023-00821-y. Acknowledgements This research was supported in part by the BMBF (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research) and the BMWi (German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy) under the funding of the PtJ (Project Management Ju ¨lich) in the course of the project ‘‘STADTQUARTIER 2050 – Herausforderungen gemeinsam lo ¨sen’’ (03SBE116) as well as by the BMBF under the funding of the PtJ in the course of the project ‘‘ODH@Ju ¨lich’’ (03SF0608). Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. 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