A Systems Thinking Approach to Improve Sustainability in Software Engineering—A Grounded Capability Maturity Framework

Gopalakrishnan Sriraman () and Shriram Raghunathan
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Gopalakrishnan Sriraman: School of Computing Science and Engineering, VIT Bhopal University, Sehore 466114, India
Shriram Raghunathan: School of Computing Science and Engineering, VIT Bhopal University, Sehore 466114, India

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: Sustainability has become a critical issue for the software industry as the environmental impact of software development and use increases. To address this issue, organizations need a framework for developing and accessing sustainable software practices. In this study, we reviewed the existing literature, models, and practices in this domain as well as carried out surveys and interviews to understand the reality, practices, and challenges on the ground. We identified a set of research questions to discover why sustainability is important, what actions can be taken to improve it, and how and when they can be implemented. This study highlighted the limitations of existing models and the need to address the research gaps. Existing research is limited by a narrow focus on specific domains such as the environment and energy or a specific phase of software development. We aim to address these through the proposed comprehensive software sustainability capability framework (SSCF), which provides a “ready reckoner”, allowing any organization to assess their current software sustainability and the capabilities and metrics they could focus on to improve sustainable software maturity. This paper also provides detailed assessment criteria, metrics, and a roadmap that can be used by any software organization to enhance their sustainability.

Keywords: sustainable software; software engineering; capability framework; DevOps practices; green IT (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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