Organizations around the world are elevating resource efficiency and sustainability from a tactical to a strategic concern, and they are moving aggressively to improve environmental performance in facilities, processes and products.

For many, this has meant new information management challenges, related to energy and water use, solid waste, toxic materials, carbon emissions, and other factors.

Often, sustainability management requires new types of information not previously tracked—e.g. details of energy and water use, product environmental attribute data, and GHG emissions. Furthermore, for IT, sustainability represents an expanded organizational paradigm, requiring approaches that span traditional boundaries between enterprise systems and facilities systems, design systems, suppliers, and customers.

In the rapidly growing market for Enterprise Sustainability Management (ESM) software and services, there is no "one size fits all” solution. Establishing an effective information architecture means taking a comprehensive view of sustainability, and putting in place capabilities that serve the organization’s highest-value needs.

In our new research report "Enterprise Sustainability Management Solutions” we present a clear, six-level reference architecture defining and classifying essential capabilities for sustainability management—from the enterprise level down to the device level. We profile and analyze offerings from nineteen key ESM solution providers, relative tonineteen specific capabilities described in the top three levels of the reference architecture. Example key findings include:

• Over the past few years, sustainability thinking has shifted away from a carbon focus to a concern with general sustainability and energy savings, notably in the US market.
• For many organizations, a combination of powerful market forces has elevated sustainability to a strategic level, with immediate implications for operations, products, and brand value.
• Leadership in sustainability requires organizations to adopt a broad range of new processes, practices and information management capabilities.
• Sustainability requires new types of information not historically tracked in many organizations – e.g. details of energy usage, water use, product environmental attribute data, GHG emissions.

Leading providers are identified in four distinct market segments. In conclusion, we present recommendations for how organizations can establish effective enterprise architectures for sustainability.