A conceptual model and supporting approach for EU taxonomy alignment with green BPM

Abstract Increasingly, companies are obliged and incentivized through regulations to consider the impact of their business processes on the environment, in order to promote sustainable business practices. In particular, the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities outlines criteria for when business practices contribute towards a sustainable future. However, it is unclear in how far existing methods for analysing and improving business practices, in particular those of the disciplines of Business Process Management (BPM) and Green BPM (i.e. a BPM variant focussing on environmental sustainability) can make use of those criteria and their underlying concepts. Therefore, we propose a conceptual model that combines concepts of the EU Taxonomy and Green BPM and clarifies the relationship between the two domains. This conceptual model is intended to provide clarity to Green BPM researchers and practitioners, and EU Taxonomy experts, in order to bridge the gap between the two domains and to operationalize the EU Taxonomy with Green BPM approaches. For further guidance regarding this operationalization, we also develop an approach to support the conceptual model’s application. We evaluate the semantics and pragmatics of our conceptual model. We find the aligned conceptual model to be semantically feasibly valid and complete; via an illustrative example and a focus group evaluation with Green BPM and EU Taxonomy experts we also find that both the aligned model and the supporting approach provide utility to their intended audiences.