7G＇s Environmental Initiative through the Lens of the Technology-Organization-Environment （TOE） Framework

This qualitative research study addresses the research question of how the environmental sustainability initiative of 7G （Seventh Generation）, a product design, marketing, and distribution company in the household and personal care products, could be understood within its supply chain context using Tornatzky and Fleischer＇s TOE （Technology-Organization-Environment） framework. Content analysis, a research technique for making valid inferences from text following a set of procedures, was used and applied to secondary data materials on 7G. The findings reveal that the environmental, organizational, and technological contexts, which are key elements of the TOE framework, are useful in analyzing and comprehending the business practices and business processes adopted by 7G to pursue its sustainability initiative. Of particular interest are those business processes that were included by 7G＇s EMS （Environment Management System） and enabled by green IS （Information Systems）. Both the strengths and weaknesses of 7G＇s efforts are discussed and suggestions are presented for modifying certain phases of the systems development life cycle methodology when implementing green IS.