M. Stadler, P. Taurer, J. Sametinger, W. Assunção, M. Riegler, M. Vierhauser, I. Groher: On the JI-RADAR: Uncovering Sustainability Tool Support for Requirements Engineering, 34th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2026), Montreal, Canada, accepted for publication.
Context: Software-intensive systems are integral to nearly all facets of modern society. Consequently, both their sustainability and their role in facilitating sustainable processes must be established by design. Software sustainability is defined as “the preservation of the long-term and beneficial use of software, and its appropriate evolution, in a context that continuously changes”. Sustainability in Requirements Engineering (RE) is commonly structured along five dimensions: Environment referring to the broader ecological effects, Technical covering implementation, maintenance, and long-term usability, Social describing the integration within communities and impact on society, Economic concerned with the business-related factors, and finally, Individual pertaining to an individual’s well-being, safety, and privacy.
One common approach for integrating sustainability into the RE process is the Sustainability Awareness Framework (SuSAF). SuSAF aims to raise awareness of the sustainability effects of software systems within their intended context. It provides guidance, instructions, and questions that support stakeholder discussions during interviews and workshops throughout the RE process.
RE Problem & Motivation: Regulatory initiatives increasingly require (software) organizations to integrate sustainability into their day-to-day business and operational processes. The United Nations 2030 Agenda formulated 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while the EU passed the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which requires companies to publish and audit sustainability-related information. Regulations and laws require organizations in the software development sector to disclose both qualitative and quantitative sustainability metrics, among other obligations. Consequently, integrating sustainability reporting processes into the software development life cycle becomes increasingly important. RE processes often lack systematic methods to elicit, analyze, and prioritize sustainability requirements alongside functional and non-functional requirements, and studies indicate that tool support for this integration remains limited.
To address this gap, we introduce JI-RADAR, which supports stakeholders involved in system design (e.g., developers, requirements engineers, project managers, and usability engineers) by providing practical tools to integrate sustainability into the RE process. We extend the widely used Atlassian Jira platform by implementing a ready-to-use plugin that can be directly adopted in industrial practice.