SCOPE: A Decision Framework for Evaluating the Sustainability and Ethics of AI Adoption

Evaluation tools for AI rarely address both ethical and environmental dimensions. This paper introduces SCOPE, a decision framework for assessing AI projects across five integrated dimensions: Sufficiency (Is AI necessary?), Carbon (What is the full environmental footprint?), Outcomes (Who benefits and who bears costs?), Power (Who controls the system?), and Endurance (Is the solution sustainable long-term?). A review of existing frameworks, spanning regulatory instruments, international standards, corporate tools, and academic proposals, reveals a structural divide: most address either ethics or environmental sustainability, but rarely both. The question of whether an AI system should be built at all (sufficiency) remains the most neglected dimension across the field. SCOPE integrates sustainability science and AI ethics into a single instrument, positions sufficiency as the foundational question, and requires explicit net impact assessment. The framework is designed for decision-makers evaluating AI adoption in organizational contexts, applicable before implementation decisions are made. This paper presents the framework's theoretical foundations, details each dimension with reference to current literature, compares SCOPE with existing frameworks, and discusses implications for research and practice.