Philip Dickemann

2022

In the future, governments will set ever-stricter climate targets for their countries to not worsen climate change. To achieve these climate targets, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must be reduced. A prior study proved, that information and communication technology (ICT) is expected to have great potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But is this also true for software systems? This study provides an overview of basic information about software systems that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, We investigate what types of customers can be supported as well as what features these software systems have. A Multivocal Literature Review (MLR) was performed due to a lack of white literature. Thus, the main data source was grey literature, collected from company websites. 65 companies were compared based on 14 developed criteria. Several software systems for greenhouse gas emission reduction are offered. We detected 6 categories of software systems e.g., Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) software systems or Emission management software systems. Furthermore, We investigated that most of them are cloudbased and that they are applicable to every sector or company size. Moreover, they can support several reporting frameworks including CSRD, NFRD, GGP, CDP, GRI, TCFD, SASB, or ISSB. Summing up, Software systems have a great potential to support companies in greenhouse gas emission reduction. In addition to that, they can support companies with a wide spectrum of features beyond greenhouse gas emission reduction. Like generating automated auditable reports or offering access to carbon offset projects.