Global environmental threats are increasingly prompting companies to pursue ecological as well as economic goals in their strategic and operational activities in line with the concept of sustainability. The advancing digitalisation of business processes must also be taken into account as a key aspect of corporate sustainability management; this can be seen in the shift from corporate responsibility to corporate digital responsibility. The use of information systems is therefore also increasing in a sustainable view of processes, so that corporate environmental information systems (BUIS) are gaining in strategic value. In addition to complying with legal regulations such as waste management or the handling of hazardous substances, such systems have set themselves the task of optimising material and energy flows, minimising emissions and waste, as well as production-integrated environmental protection and supporting eco-controlling.

The information systems required for this are considered to be particularly complex due to the need to harmonise ecological and economic objectives. To cope with this complexity, it is necessary to design company-wide, holistic BUIS that address all management levels. In order to fulfil this requirement, the targeted and comprehensive use of environmentally oriented information management processes is essential. In addition to knowledge of environmental management and environmental technology, comprehensive knowledge of the organisation and optimisation of business processes from an ecological perspective and the modelling of energy and material flows in companies and across company boundaries is required to implement such BUIS. This specialisation therefore teaches principles, procedures, methods and techniques that enable the analysis, design and implementation of BUIS.

This is flanked by sustainability informatics, which deals with issues in the area of conflict between Computing Science and sustainability, particularly with regard to target group orientation and the development of suitable software solutions. A current example is the change from voluntary non-financial reporting to mandatory reporting, whereby companies must be supported in recognising target group-oriented sustainability reporting as an elementary instrument.

Students in this specialisation are taught the following skills, among others:

• Opportunities of BUIS experience networks
• Development of industry-related reference models for production-integrated environmental protection
• Environmental Data Warehouse
• IT-supported environmental management systems for SMEs
• Material flow management
• Knowledge-based systems for energy management
• Cross-life cycle integration of environmentally relevant material information
• Environmental assessment of companies - data warehouse-supported approaches
• Corporate environmental information management
• Use and design of sustainability management in the context of digitalisation
• Corporate social responsibility and corporate digital responsibility
• Environmental and sustainability reporting

Students in this specialisation acquire the following skills, among others

• Handling methods and tools of corporate environmental informatics, e.g. material flow modelling and life cycle assessments
• Methods from the field of decision support and modelling of data models and material flows for use in BUIS
• Approaches from corporate communication with a focus on sustainability management

After completing this specialisation, students will have the following skills, among others

• Understanding of the approaches and fields of application of BUIS and sustainability informatics
• Ability to apply proven methods and tools for data modelling and information processing with the aim of suitable presentation for decision support and material flow analysis

The programme is aimed at students who

• want to support a sustainable corporate reorganisation,
• want to help shape the effects of digitalisation on sustainable IT system design,
• want to work together with economists and technicians to develop complex operational environmental solutions through the use of comprehensive software systems,
• want to plan, develop and realise efficient and sustainable information systems using modern information processing methods and/or
• want to be addressed as a consultant and partner of strategic corporate management in problems of environmental management and environmental informatics.

Students of the specialisation must take Master's modules totalling 30 CP from the specialisation area. The following modules are compulsory

• inf651 Operational Environmental Information Systems I
• inf659 Operational Environmental Information Systems II
• inf660 Sustainability Informatics

In addition, two modules should be selected from the following (non-exhaustive) list, whereby an elective module consists either of a module with 6 CP or, as an equivalent, of two seminars with 3 CP each:

• inf537 Intelligent Systems
• inf008 Information Systems II
• inf604 Business Intelligence I
• inf6602 Sustainable Information Systems
• inf006 Software Technology II
• inf018 Media Processing
• wir898 Strategic Sustainability Management
• wir902 International Sustainability Management
• wir904 Environmental and Sustainability Governance

Furthermore, the project group and the Master's thesis should be chosen in relation to the specialisation.