Communicating Environmental Issues of Software: Outline of an Acceptance Model.

During the last years, the research activities regarding software and its environmental impacts could find their way into the field of "Green IT". Thus, researchers became aware of the fact that software is one of the drivers of the energy consumption by ICT. However, the awareness for these aspects could be much higher-especially in the non-scientific area. On the one side, software developers should be aware of green strategies of software engineering. On the other side, those using the products need to be responded to the effects of using ICT products onto the environment. One idea to transfer the environmental effects of software into a social issue is to create an eco-label for software products. Next to defining criteria, such a label could be laid on, and methods to evaluate software products, it seems to be helpful to identify aspects influencing the acceptance of a certification for green software products. In this context, acceptance means taking the eco-label into account while searching for new software. Hence, the following paper aims at identifying those aspects by applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM 2) to the specific case of labelling green software products. We will present a first version of an acceptance model for a label for green software products. It is still work in-progress and needs to be evaluated as a next step. Generally, the aim is to create a tool that can be used to develop an eco-label for software products that will be strongly accepted.