Coral Calero - Software Sustainability

The preservation of the environment has become one of the most urgent concerns of todays society. People have become aware of the need to cut down on energy consumption and to reduce our carbon footprint. This means that sustainability has arisen as a key aspect in several domains, guiding the development of the worlds future. At an international level, there are many initiatives aiming to address these issues, and the main research and development programs include sizeable amounts of funding for projects seeking to achieve environmentally sound technologies. Also, at a governmental level there are efforts to align societal development with the goals of sustainability. The Paris Agreement is a good example of how countries (as representatives of their citizens) are involved in an effort to combat global climate change so as to ensure the best quality of life. According to the UN Climate Change website, the Paris Agreements central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change. It also aims to strengthen countries ability to deal with the impacts of climate change, and support them in their effortsto make finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development. To reach these ambitious goals, appropriate mobilisation and provision of financial resources, a new technology framework and enhanced capacity-building is to be put in place, thus supporting action by developing countries and the most vulnerable countries, in line with their own national objectives (UN Climate Change Secretariat 2015).

But sustainability is not just a matter of CO2 emissions, it also depends on other aspects. For example, it is necessary to develop software that takes into account not only its own energy efficiency but also aspects related to the amount of resources needed or the longevity of the software. It is important to integrate sustainability into the core business processes devoted to producing software or services, ensuring the continuity of the software industry and implementing appropriate risk-management programs and policies. And last, but not least, software workers must be taken into consideration as part of software sustainability: ethics, rights, protection, and training are among the necessary initiatives to support them.

There are therefore three key aspects of sustainability: the environment, society, and the actions necessary to ensure economic sustainability.

In fact, the United Nations Brundtland Report defines sustainable development as the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs.

Given the great relevance that software has today and the fact that it seems it will be even greater in the future, it is of utmost importance to consider sustainability as a key feature. The focus of this book is therefore on software sustainability, examined in terms of how software can be developed while taking into consideration environmental, social, and economic dimensions so as to meet the needs of the present without compromising the future.

Software sustainability has three dimensions (Fig. ):

Fig. 1

Software sustainability dimensions

• Environmental sustainability: how software product development, maintenance, and use affect energy consumption and the consumption of other natural resources. Environmental sustainability is directly related to a software product characteristic. This dimension is also known as Green Software.

• Human sustainability: how software creation and use affect the sociological and psychological aspects of the software development community and its members. This encompasses topics such as labour rights, psychological health, social support, social equity, and liveability.

• Economic sustainability: how software development and use protect stakeholders investments, ensure benefits, reduce risks, and maintain assets.

A topic that has attracted a lot of attention in the last year is Green IT and Green Software. As seen in Fig. , Green Software can be divided into Green IN Software (when the environmental issues are related to software itself) and Green BY Software (when software is used as a tool to support sustainability goals in any domain). As our focus is specifically on how software must be produced so as to be sustainable, the book will be focused on the Green IN Software part.