Abstract

Sustainability is a major theme in today’s discourses across disciplines, including Information Systems (IS). Creating a more sustainable world is considered an interdisciplinary effort and IS an inherently interdisciplinary field. Working with complex problems benefits from deeper disciplinary understanding than can be obtained by researchers operating within one field. We interviewed 30 researchers from different fields on sustainable technology development and use, analysing their discourses and reflecting those with the Quintuple Helix Innovation Model that aims for sustainable development of innovations. Our findings show power is woven into sustainability: education can empower us to make sustainable choices, politicians must be vigilant of developments in the industry to protect us as companies follow business interests, and we must all be conscious of the impact technology can have on us and our environments. We contribute with insights on the role of researchers in these discourses, and propose an IS research agenda.