Sustainability design in requirements engineering: state of practice
Open accessAbstract
Sustainability is now a major concern in society, but there is little understanding of how it is perceived by software engineering professionals and how sustainability design can become an embedded part of software engineering process. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study exploring requirements engineering practitioners' perceptions and attitudes towards sustainability. It identifies obstacles and mitigation strategies regarding the application of sustainability design principles in daily work life. The results of this study reveal several factors that can prevent sustainability design from becoming a first class citizen in software engineering: software practitioners tend to have a narrow understanding of the concept of sustainability; organizations show limited awareness of its potential opportunities and benefits; and the norms in the discipline are not conducive to sustainable outcomes. These findings suggest the need for focused efforts in sustainability education, but also a need to rethink professional norms and practices.
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A qualitative interview study was carried out with 13 RE practitioners from eight countries to validate the observations.
“To validate these observations, we carried out a qualitative interview study with 13 RE practitioners from eight countries (Austria, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK, and the United States) and explored their perceptions and attitudes toward sustainability [24].”
From Lessons learned from developing a sustainability awareness framework for software engineering using design science (2024) · cites this paper as [24]
The time-consuming nature of integrating sustainability analysis into software development is due to the complexity of five dimensions and three timescales, lack of previous sustainability knowledge in companies, and unavailability of well-integrated tool chains.
“This is not surprising, given the previously discussed complexity of five dimensions and three timescales that sustainability analysis requires, aggravated with the lack of previous knowledge of sustainability in companies and unavailability of well-integrated tool chains, supporting software developers [24].”
From Lessons learned from developing a sustainability awareness framework for software engineering using design science (2024) · cites this paper as [24]
Presently, integration of sustainability analysis into software development is a very time consuming process.
“However, presently, integration of sustainability analysis into software development is a very time consuming process.”
From Lessons learned from developing a sustainability awareness framework for software engineering using design science (2024) · cites this paper as [24]
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- Authors
- Chitchyan, R., Becker, C., Betz, S., Duboc, L., Penzenstadler, B., Seyff, N., & Venters, C. C.
- Affiliations
- University of Leicester (GB)
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (DE)
- State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- California State University, Long Beach (US)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- University of Huddersfield (GB)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering Companion
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2016-05-14
- Pages
- 533-542
- ISSN
- 0270-5257 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2398625819
- Cited by
- 104
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 10.76
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- eprints.hud.ac.uk
- Locations
- ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings (ICSE-Companion) (publishedVersion)
- University of Huddersfield Repository (University of Huddersfield) (submittedVersion)
- TSpace (University of Toronto) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Repository of Futwangen University of Applied Sciences (Furtwangen University) (submittedVersion)
- Huddersfield Research Portal (University of Huddersfield) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Explore Bristol Research (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Funders
- European Social Fund
- Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Wuttemberg
- FAPERJ (210.551/2015)
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (14/2014)
- Vienna Science and Technology Fund (ICT2012-46)
- University of Leicester
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Green IT and Sustainability
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Advanced Software Engineering Methodologies
- Keywords
- sustainable design, requirements engineering, practitioner perceptions, sustainability attitudes, barriers to sustainability, sustainable software development, professional norms, sustainability education, organizational awareness
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