Design-compliance in digital infrastructure: a realist synthesis for cybernetic governance for sustainable-by-design transformation
Wattana Viriyasitavat, Phoranee Rhuwadhana, Ra-Pee Pattanapanyasat, Chatpong Tangmanee, Prasert Kanawattanachai, Nuttirudee Charoenruk, Vitara Pungpapong, Danupol HoonsoponPurpose
This study conceptualizes digital infrastructure (DI) as a socio-technical design space in which sustainability is governed by infrastructure rather than being assessed post hoc through environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting. In addition, sustainability is treated as a property of design-compliance that can be embedded, enforced and verified in DI.
Design/methodology/approach
A multi-stage systematic review and realist synthesis are conducted on peer-reviewed publications since 2016. Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) technique, the survey focuses on the literatures with one sustainability mechanism and controllable and verifiable assurance artifacts in DI. Reflexive thematic analysis is combined with realist context–mechanism–outcome (CMO) analysis to integrate mechanism-by-design patterns in five non-overlapping layers of DI.
Findings
Mechanism-by-design configurations are classified into four layers, i.e. (1) observability and assurance as the verification layer, (2) carbon- and energy-based objectives embedded in site reliability engineering (SRE) at service layer, (3) energy-aware workload placement and autoscaling at the orchestration layer and (4) policy-as-code gates in CI/CD pipelines. Design-compliance is fully satisfied when comparators, assurance artifacts and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) co-locate at the same locus of DI. The effectiveness of DI depends on regulatory maturity, telemetry granularity, deployment topology and governance routines.
Originality/value
The study advances the study in digital transformation and sustainability in the sense that (1) the sustainability is conceptualized as a cybernetic control property in DI and (2) design-compliance outcomes are introduced as verifiable governance at the infrastructure level.