On the JI-RADAR: Uncovering Sustainability Tool Support for Requirements Engineering

2026-06-28

AI Summary

This work addresses the lack of systematic support for sustainability requirements in contemporary software requirements engineering, which hinders their effective integration with functional and non-functional requirements. To bridge this gap, the paper introduces JI-RADAR, the first open-source plugin integrated into the widely used project management platform Atlassian Jira. By extending Jira’s native architecture, JI-RADAR enables modeling, tracing, and visualization of sustainability requirements within existing development workflows. The tool seamlessly embeds sustainability considerations into standard practices, significantly enhancing teams’ ability to identify, analyze, and report on sustainability-related metrics during the requirements phase. This contribution fills a critical void in industrial practice by providing practical tooling for sustainability-aware requirements engineering.

Abstract

Context: Software-intensive systems are integral to nearly all facets of modern society [1]. Consequently, both their sustainability and their role in facilitating sustainable processes must be established by design [2], [3]. 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" [2]. 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) [6], while the EU passed the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which requires companies to publish and audit sustainability-related information [7]. Regulations and laws require organizations in the software development sector to disclose both qualitative and quantitative sustainability metrics, among other obligations [1]. 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 [4]. 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) [5] by providing practical tools to integrate sustainability into the RE process. We extend the widely used Atlassian Jira platform [8] by implementing a ready-to-use plugin that can be directly adopted in industrial practice.

Problem

• Sustainability
• Requirements Engineering
• Software Development
• Regulatory Compliance
• Sustainable Development Goals

Innovation

• sustainability requirements
• requirements engineering
• Jira plugin
• JI-RADAR
• software sustainability