Background

Enterprises increasingly adopt AI in their core processes. At the same time, they face growing pressure to report on sustainability impacts due to evolving regulations such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and voluntary standards (e.g., Global Reporting Initiative). While in prior technical work, the energy-efficiency footprint of AI-enabled ERP services was quantified, organizations must also translate such metrics into governance, reporting, and strategic decisions.

Sustainability leaders, e.g., Head of Sustainability/CSOs, data governance leads, CIOs, product owners, play a key role in this translation process. They define sustainability targets, oversee data governance, and manage disclosure practices. Yet, we still know little about how these roles perceive AI’s sustainability risks and opportunities, and how they integrate AI-related evidence into their decision-making and reporting practices.

Research Goal

As part of ongoing research on AI and sustainability in enterprise systems, you can contribute with your thesis to bridge quantitative results with organizational perspectives. The thesis will explore how organizations currently:

• evaluate AI’s sustainability impacts,
• incorporate AI-related metrics into governance and reporting, and
• make strategic decisions, for instance, whether to “inject AI” into existing processes or to redesign processes.

Potential research directions include:

• Conducting semi-structured interviews with sustainability and digital leaders (e.g., CSOs/Heads of Sustainability, CIOs, data governance leads) from different industries (focus on DACH plus selected international firms)
• Analyzing sustainability and annual reports as well as AI-related disclosures from SAP and other enterprises
• Mapping existing quantitative measurements (e.g., energy-efficiency of AI vs. non-AI ERP services) to organization-relevant KPIs and reporting categories

Your Profile

• You are interested in the emerging field of AI and sustainability
• You are confident in conducting executive interviews and comfortable engaging with industry professionals
• You are highly motivated to work on real-world challenges in a self-organized and goal-oriented working mode, and you bring in your own ideas
• Very good English skills, as the thesis will be written in English; German is a plus for interviews in the DACH region

Details

• Start: Immediatly
• Language: English

We offer you an exciting research topic, close supervision, and the opportunity to develop both practical and theoretical skills. If you are interested, please send a current transcript of records, a short CV, and a brief motivation (2-3 sentences) to Linda Sagnier (linda.sagnier∂kit.edu).