This special issue examines how information systems scholarship can address environmental concerns related to generative AI. While GAI offers significant benefits for efficiency and automation, its rapid development has created substantial environmental challenges, including high electricity consumption, water use for cooling, and electronic waste from obsolete computing hardware. These impacts disproportionately affect vulnerable populations and regions in the Global South.
The issue seeks studies adopting an eco-socio-technical perspective to explore both the negative environmental effects of GAI and its potential benefits for weather forecasting, agriculture, and urban management. Contributors are encouraged to investigate how organizations, governments, individuals, and communities can implement and use GAI responsibly, examining tradeoffs between technological benefits and environmental costs. Research employing primary data, various methodologies, and practitioner perspectives are welcomed.