Main Page
For the English readers: this wiki is originally in Dutch. We made an English translation of the mainpage of the wiki. The page refers to the Dutch pages, some of which are in English. The Dutch main page can be found here: Hoofdpagina
The Sustainable IT Impact Assessment (SIIA)
Welcome to the wiki of the Sustainable IT Impact Assessment (SIIA) of the Dutch National Coalition for Sustainable Digitalisation (NCDD).
In the National Coalition for Sustainable Digitalisation (NCDD), parties work together to remove the most important barriers surrounding sustainable digitalisation. It is a public-private collaboration between government, businesses, educational and research institutions, and civil society organisations.
The SIIA is written by the SIIA working group, consisting of members of the NCDD.
The SIIA provides inspiration for all organisations in the Netherlands that want to get started with sustainable digitalisation. It provides structure for systematically addressing that ambition, but also offers tools for individuals or organisations who want to begin with a specific part. It is therefore a guide for employees, managers, and executives with responsibilities or tasks in the field of sustainability and IT.
The SIIA is the starting point for making IT more sustainable and using IT for a sustainable organisation.
CHAPTERS of the WIKI
The SIIA takes a broad approach to sustainability: a healthy, thriving organisation (Governance) that promotes a healthy Environment and contributes to a healthy Society. See What is sustainability on the broad approach to sustainability, which is also applied by European and Dutch sustainability legislation and follows international best practices.
Sustainable IT helps an organisation remain sustainable and healthy in a society that itself is transitioning to sustainability (sustainability with IT), and the IT used to achieve this is itself sustainable (sustainability of IT): regarding the use of raw materials, energy, and the societal and environmental impact of production, logistics, and e-waste.
Use cases
SIIA Approach is based on three use cases (contributed by working group members):
- Use case WiGo4IT: a cooperative IT organisation that provides reliable and affordable social security services for municipalities while also working on sustainability (WiGo4IT)
- Conclusion: IT for sustainable energy management at Dutch Railways (NS) Stations (Conclusion)
- ABN AMRO: Greening work processes and IT at ABN AMRO (ABN AMRO)
Make the business model sustainable of the organisation
- The triple layered business model canvas: a tool to design more sustainable business models (TNO)
- The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
IT Management: Preconditions for reliable, agile, robust, secure, and sustainable IT
This concerns the analysis of how to organise IT so that it is reliable, sufficiently agile, robust, secure, and sustainable.
The use cases in the SIIA show that the perspectives of IT management and sustainability often reinforce each other. The speed of the transition can be hindered, for example because the IT landscape is not yet able to support the change. Or because other requirements, such as security or continuity, impose restrictions.
In the SIIA, the following topics on IT management are addressed:
- requirements to strengthen IT reliability,
- requirements to increase IT agility and flexibility,
- requirements to strengthen resilience: preventing unwanted dependencies, measures to prevent the impact of incidents, fallback options,
- requirements from supply chains and suppliers: dependence on suppliers creates vulnerabilities that must be mitigated. Often, contractual agreements on performance and costs impose restrictions on what is possible,
- requirements from information security and cybersecurity, privacy issues,
- legal requirements: sometimes sector-specific (consider financial services (DORA), Cybersecurity Act (EUCS), Data Act (interoperability of data)).
The frameworks, standards, studies, and audits to account for these IT management issues – in line with the requirements of the GRI/ESRS standards – are described in: International Digital Reporting Standard.
Make processes sustainable with IT
Best practices to analyse and improve the sustainability of (existing and new) organisational processes and how IT can contribute:
- An older publication, which inspired many other initiatives: Sustainable IT Playbook, Sundberg 2002.
- Sustainable TWO Model by SIIA working group member Conclusion: Conclusion Two-model
- Twin Transition Playbook by PA Consulting Twin Transition Playbook
- A strategic framework for overcoming barriers to accelerate green and digital transitions by SIIA working group member Lisette van Rijn (2023).
- Net Carbon Impact Assessment Methodology for ICT Solutions - European Green Digital Coalition.
Make IT itself sustainable
Best practices to make IT itself more sustainable: less equipment, less and greener energy, more sustainable and longer use, possibilities of virtualisation and cloud, limiting e-waste:
- S3 model: IT management decision framework - Sustainability, Security, Sovereignty
- Procurement and tendering of Hardware
- Green Software
- Carbon-aware computing
- Sustainable data management
- Cloud and sustainability
- Measuring emissions
- Measuring circularity
- IT sizing
Innovation and cultural change
Sustainability in an organisation often begins with a small, motivated group that takes the initiative to start improving the first choices and processes. When this spreads like an oil stain, and sustainability gradually becomes embraced by those responsible and colleagues, questions arise such as: how do we organise everything that needs to be done to achieve sustainability (see the Sustainability Radar), what is needed to make sustainable choices in daily work (see Behaviour and culture). How can an organisation be structured so that sustainability becomes part of its strategy, tactics, and actions (see Innovation and culture and Aligned Autonomy). And finally: research into the impact and desirability of changes for employees, customers, business partners, and parties in the supply chain (see Ethics of guidance approach).
- SIIA Sustainability Radar
- GreenOps
- Innovation and culture
- Aligned Autonomy
- Behaviour and culture
- Ethics of guidance approach
Measurement and reporting
The core message of the SIIA, and of European legislation on sustainability, is that sustainability is not a matter of being either sustainable or not. Sustainability is part of balancing the interests of the environment, society, and the organisation itself.
The analysis of the impact of organisational activities on the environment and society, and conversely the impact of changes in environment, society, and the economic landscape, requires adjustment of organisational goals ("think"). To achieve those goals, a strategy and tactics are needed ("organise" and "do"), and progress must continually be monitored and reported ("measure").
These wiki pages concern organisations on their path to sustainability: examples of how they move from analysis, to strategy and policy, and to accountability.
Reports
Measure
In-depth: sustainability legislation and regulation
The SIIA consists of:
SIIA Guide
[20 June 2025 version 1.0]
A guide to make IT more sustainable and to use IT for a sustainable organisation. Intended as inspiration and a tool for all organisations in the Netherlands that want to work on sustainable digitalisation.
SIIA Radar
[20 June 2025 version 1.0]
Interactive tool with a visual overview of activities that are ongoing, tested, researched, or need to be stopped to achieve sustainability. Four types of activities are distinguished: aimed at making the organisation more sustainable, IT itself more sustainable, greening processes with the help of IT, and improving sustainability at the workplace (to the SIIA Radar)
SIIA Wiki
[20 June 2025 version 1.0]
A wiki with background information and best practices to carry out the SIIA analyses. Coalition participants can add relevant information themselves on the wiki.
SIIA Chatbot
[29 September 2025 version 1.0]
How you can use a Large Language Model (ChatGPT, GoogleLM, Llama, Claude, Mistral, Granite) to create a sustainability plan based on the SIIA, with the help of the various frameworks and products of the NCDD working groups, to plan (with the radar), execute, and monitor.
