Developing green and sustainable software: Success factors for vendors

Software plays an important role in various aspects of our life. However, recent software development practices have substantial negative impacts (direct and indirect) on economy, society, human beings, and environment. To cope with these issues the concept of Green Software Engineering has boomed recently. Green and sustainable software development aims to create green software that meets the needs of current and future users while minimizing its negative impacts on the environment and society. Green software development is getting attention in Global Software Engineering (GSE). Software development multi-sourcing vendor organizations have focused on the adaptation of green practices in software development projects. The objectives of this study are to identify and scrutinize a list of critical success factors (CSFs) for vendors in the development of green and sustainable software. The required data for conducting the study was taken, via systematic literature review (SLR) process, from a sample of 74 research papers. The SLR findings reveal that `green software design and efficient coding', `power-saving software strategies ', `low carbon emission throughout the software development process', `efficient resource utilization', `paperless communication', `filtration of requirements through green evaluator and e-waste management' are the critical factors to be implanted by vendors in the development of green and sustainable software.