Sarah: Sustainability Assessment & Recommendations Arc Hub

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face persistent difficulties in adopting sustainability practices due to limited resources, time constraints, and fragmented access to knowledge. Increasing regulatory pressures, such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), further intensify the need for structured and accessible support. Following a Design Science Research (DSR) approach, this study designs, develops, and evaluates SARAH (Sustainability Assessment Recommendations Arc Hub), a digital decision support platform aimed at guiding SMEs from initial sustainabil-ity awareness to actionable implementation. The research draws on a structured literature review, a comparative analysis of eight existing sustainability assessment tools, and fourteen semi-structured interviews with professionals from the construction and watchmaking sectors. SARAH integrates three core components: (1) awareness resources grounded in recognized standards, (2) an ESG-based self-assessment to evaluate sustainability maturity, and (3) sector-specific, actionable recommendations. An initial evaluation with six practitioners demonstrates the artefact’s relevance and usability. Beyond the instantiated artefact, this research contributes six design principles for sustainability-oriented decision support systems tailored to SMEs, thereby extending design knowledge for information systems supporting organizational sustainability transitions.