SoK: Is Sustainable the New Usable? Debunking The Myth of Fundamental Incompatibility Between Security and Sustainability

2026-03-02

AI Summary

This study challenges the prevailing misconception that cybersecurity and environmental sustainability are inherently at odds—a belief that often leads to premature device obsolescence. Through a systematic literature review (SoK) of 29 publications, the authors distill 155 guidelines and synthesize them into 12 thematic categories, enabling a cross-disciplinary comparison across sustainable human-computer interaction, sustainable software engineering, and cybersecurity practices. The work systematically deconstructs the myth of an irreconcilable tension between security and sustainability, demonstrating that genuine conflicts are rare and that most perceived trade-offs can be mitigated through co-design. Drawing an analogy to the principle that “usability is security,” the paper advocates shifting responsibility from individual users to system-level design, thereby establishing a new paradigm and offering concrete theoretical and practical pathways for integrating sustainability and cybersecurity.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Security
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Privacy & Security
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Applications of cryptography
• Responsible Web: Sustainability and climate impact of web technologies
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Sustainability and carbon-aware systems for Web, mobile, and WoT

Abstract

Every year, millions of functional systems become e-waste because users are pressured to send their systems to landfills due to a lack of vendor support and difficulty in recycling. Vendors cite ``cybersecurity'' as the driver for short product support periods, leading to a prevalent, but uninterrogated, belief that cybersecurity and environmental sustainability are fundamentally contradictory; i.e., it is difficult, if not impossible, to build products that are secure, long-lasting, and reusable. To understand the nuanced relationship between security and sustainability, we systematically analyze 29 papers and distill 155 sustainability guidelines into 12 sustainability themes. These themes enable us to compare the sustainable HCI and sustainable software engineering guidance with that of cybersecurity, identifying points of alignment and tension. We find little evidence of a fundamental tension between these two domains; the few instances of tension can be mitigated through thoughtful consideration of security and sustainability objectives. We also find that sustainability, like usable security, struggles with the myth of users as the weakest link and the individualization of responsibility. Building on these parallels, we argue that the usable security community is well-positioned to integrate sustainability considerations, as both fields share challenges in shifting responsibility from individuals to systemic design.

Problem

• cybersecurity
• sustainability
• e-waste
• product support
• systemic design

Innovation

• sustainable security
• usable security
• e-waste reduction
• systemic design
• security-sustainability alignment