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# Sustainability: Delivering Agility’s Promise

Jutta Eckstein  Email<EMAIL_ADDRESS>Claudia de O. Melo  Email:
<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
###### Abstract

Sustainability is a promise by agile development, as it is part of both the
Agile Alliance’s and the Scrum Alliance’s vision. Thus far, not much has been
delivered on this promise. This paper explores the Agile Manifesto and points
out how agility could contribute to sustainability in its three dimensions –
social, economic, and environmental. Additionally, this paper provides some
sample cases of companies focusing on both sustainability (partially or
holistically) and agile development.

##  I Introduction

The two major agile organisations, the Agile Alliance and the Scrum Alliance,
both promise in their vision statements that sustainability is one of their
core goals:

> Agile Alliance is a nonprofit organisation committed to supporting people
> who explore and apply Agile values, principles, and practices to make
> building software solutions more effective, humane, and sustainable [1].
> Scrum Alliance®is a nonprofit organisation that is guiding and inspiring
> individuals, leaders, and organisations with agile practices, principles,
> and values to help create workplaces that are joyful, prosperous, and
> sustainable [2].

If we want to support building software solutions to be more effective,
humane, and sustainable or to help create workplaces that are joyful,
prosperous, and sustainable we have to aim (among other things) for
sustainability. However, thus far not much has been done for approaching this
aim.

In this paper, we are going to provide a new lens in order to understand the
Agile Manifesto under the premise the agile approach wants to fulfil its
promise for sustainability and we will provide various case studies of
companies attempting to use agile development to contribute to sustainability.

The paper is structured as follows: we will at first examine the various
definitions of sustainability and explore both how the business and
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) approach and classify
sustainability. We will then take a close look at the principles defined by
the Agile Manifesto in order to find out how they can support sustainable
development [3]. Next, we present various case studies of companies either
addressing sustainability partially or holistically by leveraging it with an
agile approach. In the conclusion, we will take a critical look at
sustainability initiatives before we will provide an outlook on the
(hopefully) not so far future.

##  II Sustainability

There are several definitions for sustainability and nuances across the
spectrum of sustainable use, sustainable development and sustainability [4].
The most famous and frequently definition adopted to frame discussions around
sustainability is provided by the Brundtland report [5]:

> “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present
> without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
> needs. It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of ’needs’, in
> particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding
> priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state
> of technology and social organisation on the environment’s ability to meet
> present and future needs”.

The Brundtland report suggests how economic and social development should be
defined and calls all countries to action:

> Thus the goals of economic and social development must be defined in terms
> of sustainability in all countries - developed or developing, market-
> oriented or centrally planned. Interpretations will vary, but must share
> certain general features and must flow from a consensus on the basic concept
> of sustainable development and on a broad strategic framework for achieving
> it.

Finally, the report describes how a path towards sustainability should look
like, bringing the concept of physical sustainability (related to living under
the laws of nature and minimising the impact on the physical environment) and
its connection to intra- and inter- generational social equity:

> “Development involves a progressive transformation of economy and society. A
> development path that is sustainable in a physical sense could theoretically
> be pursued even in a rigid social and political setting. But physical
> sustainability cannot be secured unless development policies pay attention
> to such considerations as changes in access to resources and in the
> distribution of costs and benefits. Even the narrow notion of physical
> sustainability implies a concern for social equity between generations, a
> concern that must logically be extended to equity within each generation”.

According to the these definitions, sustainability is about taking long-term
responsibility for your action and reaches further than energy consumption and
pollution as it is often casually understood.

Other important concepts that seek to explain sustainability are: the three-
pillar model and the triple bottom line. The three-pillar model depicts
sustainability by synthesising social, economic, and environmental concerns.
It is the model most widely used, for example, it is the definition given by
Wikipedia and also used on the 2005 World Summit on Social Development [6, 7].
However, as explained in [8], “the conceptual foundations of this model are
far from clear and there appears to be no singular source from which it
derives”.

The triple bottom line is an accounting framework that seeks to broadening the
notion of a company bottom line by introducing a full cost accounting. A
single bottom line is the company’s profit (if negative, loss) in an
accounting period. A triple bottom line adds social and environmental
(ecological) concerns to the accounting. If a corporation has a monetary
profit, but it causes thousands of deaths or pollutes a river, and the
government ends up spending taxpayer money on health care and river clean-up,
the triple bottom line needs to account for these cost-benefit analysis too.

The triple bottom line is also known by the phrase “people, planet, and
profit” and was coined by John Elkington in 1994 while at SustainAbility (a
British consultancy). A triple bottom line company seeks to gauge a
corporation’s level of commitment to corporate social responsibility and its
impact on the environment over time [9].

Another important framework that also articulates sustainability is the United
Nations 2030 Agenda and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals: “The Sustainable
Development Goals are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the
planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere” [10].

Also these sustainable development goals are founded in the three pillar
model: social (the aim of ending poverty), environmental (protecting the
planet), and economic (improving the lives and prospects of everyone,
everywhere). Therefore, throughout this article we will use the three-pillar
model as the definition for sustainability, as illustrated by Figure 1.

Figure 1: The three dimensions of sustainability [8]

Even with the definition of the three pillars, it has always to be understood
that sustainability is highly interconnected that any elaboration on
sustainability requires a holistic perspective because all actions are
interdependent [11]:

> “All definitions of sustainable development require that we see the world as
> a system—a system that connects space; and a system that connects time. When
> you think of the world as a system over space, you grow to understand that
> air pollution from North America affects air quality in Asia, and that
> pesticides sprayed in Argentina could harm fish stocks off the coast of
> Australia. And when you think of the world as a system over time, you start
> to realise that the decisions our grandparents made about how to farm the
> land continue to affect agricultural practice today; and the economic
> policies we endorse today will have an impact on urban poverty when our
> children are adults”.

###  II-A Business and Sustainability

According to the dictionary [12], “Business pertains broadly to commercial,
financial, and industrial activity, and more narrowly to specific fields or
firms engaging in this activity”.

However, also the business and its self-conception is changing. In particular,
this became visible, by the Business Roundtable, an association of chief
executive officers of leading companies in the USA, refining its statement on
the purpose of a corporation in 2019. This refined statement made a shift from
the focus on satisfying shareholders by making money to a more holistic
understanding and aiming for satisfying customers, employees, communities,
suppliers, and shareholders equally. This shift comprehends an understanding
that financial success is not the sole purpose of business.

For example, the statement says [13]:

> “…when it comes to addressing difficult economic, environmental and societal
> challenges, these companies are starting in their own backyards – partnering
> with communities to provide the investment and innovative solutions needed
> to revitalize local economies and improve lives.
>
> These investments and initiatives aren’t just about doing good; they’re
> about doing good business and creating a thriving economy with greater
> opportunity for all.”

Although, when talking about sustainability, the Business Roundtable refers
only to energy and environment, they show an understanding of sustainability
as it is defined by the Brundtland report [14, 5] by pointing out the
importance and interdependence of the economic, environmental, and societal
challenges.

At the organisational level, there are concrete movements aiming to answer the
question of how an organisation can be more balanced across the three
sustainability pillars. They recognise that capitalism, as it’s currently
practised, is starting to run into fundamental structural problems.

In the US, B Lab [15] has worked to create a certification of “social and
environmental performance” to evaluate for-profit companies. B Lab
certification requires companies to meet social sustainability and
environmental performance, and accountability standards, as well as being
transparent to the public according to the score they receive on the
assessment. Later on, they also developed the concept of “benefit
corporations”, companies that legally commit themselves to honour moral
values, while pursuing the standard capitalist goal of maximising profits. A
few examples of well-known benefit corporations include Method, Kickstarter,
Plum Organics, King Arthur Flour, Patagonia, Solberg Manufacturing, Laureate
Education, and Altschool.

In Europe, Economy for the Common Good (ECG) [16] has similar goals. ECG is an
economic model, which makes the Common Good, a good life for everyone on a
healthy planet, its primary goal and purpose. The Economy for the Common Good
(ECG) was initiated in 2010 by economic reformist and author Christian Felber,
together with a group of Austrian pioneer enterprises. ECG is an ethical model
for society and the economy with the goal of reorienting the free market
economy through a democratic process towards common good values. According to
Felber, it seeks to address a capitalist system that “creates a number of
serious problems: unemployment, inequality, poverty, exclusion, hunger,
environmental degradation and climate change”. The solution is an economic
system that “places human beings and all living entities at the centre of
economic activity”.

At the heart of ECG lies the idea that values-driven businesses are mindful of
and committed to: 1) Human Dignity; 2) Solidarity and Social Justice; 3)
Environmental Sustainability, and 4) Transparency and Co-Determination. ECG is
currently supported by more than 1800 enterprises in 40 countries such as
Sparda-Bank Munich, VAUDE, Sonnentor, and taz (German newspaper), about 250
have created a Common Good Balance Sheet. This balance sheet is a scorecard
that measures companies based on their preservation of those 4 fundamental
values, considering 5 key stakeholders: Suppliers; Owners/Equity/Financial
Service Providers; Employees/Co-worker employers; Customers/Other Companies;
and Social Environment.

###  II-B ICT/Technology and Sustainability

The idea of using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to address
sustainability issues has been investigated in a number of interdisciplinary
fields that combine ICT with Environmental and/or Social sciences. Amongst
these are Environmental informatics, Computational sustainability, Sustainable
Human-Computer Interaction, Green IT/ICT, or ICT for Sustainability [4].

The contributions of these fields are manifold: monitoring the environment;
understanding complex systems; data-sharing, and consensus-building; decision
support for the management of natural resources; reducing the environmental
impact of ICT hardware and software; enabling sustainable patterns of
production and consumption; and understanding and using ICT as a
transformational technology.

For these different areas, there is a common understanding that ICT can be
used to reduce its own footprint and to support sustainable patterns [4]:

  * •

Sustainability in ICT (also referred as Green in ICT): Making ICT goods and
services more sustainable over their whole life cycle, mainly by reducing the
energy and material flows they invoke.

  * •

Sustainability by ICT (also referred as Green by ICT): Creating, enabling, and
encouraging sustainable patterns of production and consumption

The problem with this differentiation is that often sustainability in and by
ICT are intertwined. When analysing the impact of certain technology, looking
for a final positive or negative conclusion, it is not possible to assess it
in isolated contexts to make a decision. A positive positive occurs when the
effect of a sustainable activity on the social fabric of the community causes
well-being of the individuals and families considering the three pillars [17].
Thus, assessing the ICT impact needs to consider that [4]:

> “Sustainable development […] is defined on a global level, which implies
> that any analysis or assessment must ultimately take a macro-level
> perspective. Isolated actions cannot be considered part of the problem, nor
> part of the potential solution, unless there is a procedure in place for
> systematically assessing the macrolevel impacts”.

Therefore, the assessment of specific technology impact on sustainable
development must consider its nuances and inter-dependencies on multiple
levels, that might be on both spaces of “in” and “by”. A good example is
provided in [18], p 284:

> “[…] history of technology has shown that increased energy efficiency does
> not automatically contribute to sustainable development. Only with targeted
> efforts on the part of politics, industry and consumers will it be possible
> to unleash the true potential of ICT to create a more sustainable society”.

##  III Agile and Sustainability

If agile is really aiming for sustainability, as it is suggested by the vision
of both the Agile Alliance and the Scrum Alliance, then we should take a look
at the principles of the Agile Manifesto to understand how these principles
can contribute to or guide sustainability [3]. Sustainability requires a much
broader view to integrate the environmental, economic, and social
perspectives.

###  III-A Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and
continuous delivery of valuable software.

At the core of this very first principle is continuous learning by focusing
constantly on the customer. Only through continuous delivery you will be able
to keep adjusting the system to the customer’s satisfaction. Broadening the
perspective, and looking at this principle through a sustainability lens, that
is taking also the environmental and social aspect into account, shifts also
the meaning of “valuable” software. The value is not only defined by the
economic benefit for the customer but also by the social and environmental
improvements.

Moreover, by broadening the perspective, we’ll find that it will become even
harder to come up with a perfect solution right away. For example, measuring
the carbon footprint of the system you’re building will teach you what aspects
you need to adapt, rethink, and redo. Thus, adding two more dimensions
(environmental and social) increases the complexity of development and thus,
continuous learning is even more important to uncover emergent practices [19].

###  III-B Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile
processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.

This second principle addresses sustainability by ICT, by focusing on the
customer (like the principle before). At first sight, the “customer’s
competitive advantage” sounds like it can only aim for economical success.
Yet, the advantage can also be built by a reputation of the product as being
environmental and social friendly. As a counter example, the authors have seen
websites that require the specification of the first and last name of the user
(Figure 2111https://twitter.com/shirleyywu/status/1300628412466298881?s=20).
However, both need to be at least three characters long. If the developers
would have been socially aware they would have understood that there are many
people (especially in Asia) whose names are only two characters long. This is
only a minor example but still shows how broadening the view can make a
difference for the customer - by gaining a good or bad reputation.

Figure 2: Application requiring two characters for last name

To provide the customer this kind of competitive advantage, we have to answer:

  * •

How is the product that we’re creating helping the world?

  * •

How is it part of a wider sustainable solution?

  * •

How can we ensure the product is inclusive?

  * •

How can the product even improve the environment?

  * •

How can we ensure the product itself is environment friendly?

###  III-C Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a
couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

Similar to the first principle, also this one focuses on continuous learning.
The difference is that this third principle asks to establish a regular
cadence for feedback. The shorter the feedback cycle, the better, because then
we can keep the focus on the learning about the changes in the system by the
last delivery. This principle is important for tackling sustainability because
the knowledge, wisdom, and experience is steadily increasing in all three
dimensions (economical, social, and environmental) and this learning has to be
reflected in the system.

For example, although we might have designed the system to be highly
accessible, only by getting the feedback from the people who are in the need
of the accessibility will we know how well the system performs. Similarly, we
can learn from the real carbon footprint of the system only when we know how
it performs in reality.

To continuously learn from the delivery you should regularly ask yourself
questions as [20]:

  * •

Does the system work for people with disabilities?

  * •

Does the system work for people using older devices?

  * •

Does the system provide the best possible performance with the least amount of
resources across devices and platforms?

###  III-D Business people and developers must work together daily throughout
the project.

This is the fourth principle of the Agile Manifesto and points out the
importance of collaboration between the ones creating the product or service
(developers) and the ones who want to offer that product or service to the
market. Continuous collaboration enables self-organisation around the system
created and this allows to discover and actually meet the market needs.

The collaboration between business people and developers is not market focused
only (anymore), but keeps the wider perspective of addressing all three
dimensions of sustainability. This includes a reflection on the market we
serve, disrupt, and/or create. For example, in the last decades car
manufacturers did create a market for heavy and environmental unfriendly cars
(the sport Utility Vehicles, SUVs) and hesitated on the other hand to create a
market for electric cars with the argument that this market does not exist
[21].

Thus, this principle is a continuous reminder to consider all aspects of
sustainability in our daily work.

###  III-E Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the
environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

This is the principle number five and directly mentions the environment. First
of all, this principle is a call to action for sustainability in ICT. At first
sight, the social pillar is emphasising the importance of supporting the
individuals for example, by paying them fair (also despite any difference in
i.e., race, gender, religion, location, etc.). Providing an environment that
helps the individuals to self-organise for getting their job done includes the
technical tools yet, also the safety of the environment: the individuals are
not put at risk by e.g. a polluted or toxic work-space (think of asbestos,
colours, or carpets that evaporate toxic emissions).

Moreover, the environment can also contribute, neutralise, or reduce the
carbon footprint. For example, by the energy that is used, the availability of
natural light, the existence of natural plants, or the commute that is
required. Finally, from an economic point of view, this principle also
requests that the environment allows every individual in the same way to
prosper and grow by offering life-long learning.

###  III-F The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to
and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

This sixth principle puts direct conversation at the core. Face-to-face
conversation provides transparency particularly from the social and economic
point of view. If the system you are building should support for example,
(individual) growth and development or / and inclusiveness, then you will get
qualitatively better feedback from the users if talking to them directly.
Direct observation, eye contact, mimic, and gesture provide additional
information how well the system is serving the users.

This principle invites as well to build a community with everyone involved in
making the product sustainable. The community reflects in the process and in
the product it is an interdependent relationship.

###  III-G Working software is the primary measure of progress.

This principle aims for transparency. Certainly, it is important to think
ideas through however, you will only know if they keep their promises when
hitting reality. This includes to regularly examine the system for unintended
consequences (also known as the precautionary principle [22]). Therefore, it
is also the responsibility of an agile team to prevent and monitor for any
unintended consequences in order to address them [23].

Therefore, never underestimate the importance of feedback for example, on
energy consumption on the running system, theory and reality do not always
show the same results. From the social perspective, regularly examine the
working system guided by questions as:

  * •

Does the system work in the same way for everyone independent if i.e., the
gender differs or it is used by people from different races or ethnicity?

  * •

Would a domestic abuser find possibilities to do harm to the system but more
so to other people?

  * •

Can the system be used by a government to oppress?

We suggest to take a look at other questions, for example the ones offered by
the Ethical Explorer toolkit [24].

###  III-H Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors,
developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

This is the eighths of twelve principles and the only one that calls for
sustainable development explicitly. It focuses foremost on sustainability in
ICT. Thus far, this principle has mainly been understood from the social
aspect for example, calls for the ’40 hour week’ have been argued with the
reference to this principle [25].

Using the lens of sustainability, it asks that developers learn continuously
about all three pillars and take the learning into account: environment,
social, and economic. Therefore, having a constant pace in mind, developing
the product or service should not lead to burnout of the developers (social),
to reduction of resources (environment), or to overspending financially
(economic). For example, the features developed should take the diversity and
the abilities of the users into account, the energy used creating the product
should be renewable, and the so-called feature-creep should be avoided.

Feature-creep, the inclusion of unnecessary features and the development of
features that do not adhere to the intended design and architecture leads to
inefficiency of the overall system. Moreover, the utilised capacity of the CPU
in idle mode or the demand for storage are reasons for software getting
slower.

Therefore, sustainable development has to be taken into account by the
developers and the sponsors to ensure that, for example, the user is not
required to invest in a new hardware regularly. Modularity and allowing the
user to determine which modules to buy, install, and use take into account
that not every user will need every possible innovation (at least not on every
device).

###  III-I Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
enhances agility.

Developments in sustainability are progressing fast - from new understandings
of algorithm bias (social aspect), or of where most energy is used and how it
could be reduced i.e. by storing data locally and reducing network traffic
(environmental aspect) to better ways for finding out which features are
actually used and so - to ensure that money is not wasted by feature-creep.

Thus, this ninth principle, is a call for continuous learning and for keeping
technologically up-to-date and taking into account new learning and
development that enable good design: now good in the sense of sustainability.
This ensures the principle supports sustainability in ICT.

###  III-J Simplicity–the art of maximising the amount of work not done–is
essential.

The tenth principle often requires a second read before it is understood. In
general, it addresses the feature-creep mentioned above. So, when developing
software, we need to pay attention to what is really needed in the product.
Looking through a sustainability lens at this principle, we need to examine
for example, how does this new feature fit in the system without increasing
the energy consumption? Using Scrum as an example, sustainability or rather
energy consumption needs to be considered during backlog refinement, sprint
planning, by the definition of done, as well as monitored through tests.

The German Federal Environment Office created and published in 2020 a label
(or certificate) “Blauer Engel” for resources and energy-efficient software
stand-alone products, based on a criteria catalogue jointly developed by the
university of Trier and Zurich [26, 27]. The label focuses on energy-
efficiency, conservative resource consumption, and transparent interfaces. The
plan is to develop a similar label for cloud-based software. However, already
today, the criteria catalogue can guide a team to develop a sustainable
system. For example, the following questions should be regularly discussed
[27]:

  * •

How much electricity does the hardware consume when the software product is
used to execute a standard usage scenario?

  * •

Does the software product use only those hardware capacities required for
running the functions demanded by the individual user? Does the software
product provide sufficient support when users adapt it to their needs?

  * •

Can the software product (including all programs, data, and documentation
including manuals) be purchased, installed, and operated without transporting
physical storage media (including paper) or other materials goods (including
packaging)?

  * •

To what extent does the software product contribute to efficient management of
the resources it uses during operation?

Thus, this principle requires transparency for features that are needed (and
used) and those that are not.

###  III-K The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-
organising teams.

The eleventh principle points out the benefits of self-organising teams. This
includes that every team member is invited to speak up and make their
contribution to the architecture, requirements, and design - independent of
other characteristics of that team member (social perspective). Similarly, all
team members will get the same fair chance to progress on the their career by
getting equal support through training, mentoring, or coaching (economic
perspective).

###  III-L At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more
effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.

The twelfth and final principle asks teams to run regular retrospectives. Both
the reflection and behavioural adjustments should take (also) sustainability
aspects into account: how can the team tune and adjust its behaviour to become
more effective regarding the three pillars - environmental, social, and
economical? Dedicating time regularly for reflecting on sustainability will
lead to continuous improvements. This last principle combines the quest for
teams to self-organise in order to learn continuously by making their
effectiveness with the focus on the customer transparent.

###  III-M Summary of the Agile Manifesto’s Perspective on Sustainability

Implementing sustainable development goals requires approaching wicked
problems, i.e. complex, non-linear, dynamic challenges in situations of
insufficient resources, incomplete information, emerging risks and threats,
and fast changing environments [28]. Examining the principles of the Agile
Manifesto shows how an agile approach indeed promotes (or can promote)
sustainable development. It might be surprising how much guidance the
principles can provide although they have been defined originally with the
focus on software development only.

Concentrating continuously on inspect and adapt allows sustainable systems to
emerge. An agile, cross-functional team integrates different perspectives on
the emerging system and has this way the possibility to design solutions for
sustainability. The disciplined approach provided by agile development enables
the team to permanently learn from their delivery, to measure the outcome
according its environmental, social, and economic impact and take according
actions for adjustments.

However, taking all three dimensions of sustainability into account leads to
higher complexity, so an agile approach also comes in handy for addressing
this complexity by breaking down the problems and using an inspect and adapt
approach for making them simpler.

The role of Agility is not to save the world, but to provide a value system
based on transparency, constant customer focus, self-organisation, and
continuous learning that leads into sustainable thinking and offers an
approach that supports putting this sustainable thinking into action.

##  IV Case Studies: Leveraging Agility for Sustainability

Although the Agile Manifesto [3] originates in 2001 and the Brundtland report
[5] in 1987, the combination of agility and sustainability is just in its
beginnings. There are some sample companies being conscious of one of the
three pillars and even fewer sample companies taking a holistic approach on
combining sustainability and agility. In this section we will provide some
sample case studies for both attempts - agility and one of the three pillars
as well as company-wide agility and sustainability using a holistic approach.

We want to point out that for the following case studies, as for other
examples, there is no such thing as a “perfect” company, neither in terms of
sustainability nor in terms of agility. However, these case studies still can
serve as examples of possible steps to take in order to leverage agility for
sustainability.

###  IV-A Agility and Partial Sustainability

In this section, we explore different examples from companies applying agility
on one of the three pillars - social, environmental, and economical -
individually. The examples show that being conscious about sustainability can
be guided by an agile approach.

####  IV-A1 The Social Pillar

Often, we act as if our responsibility would end by delivering the value to
the customer. An agile team typically aims to deliver regularly high value for
the customer’s advantage. After the (or rather after each) delivery, the
team’s job is completed (except for maintenance and further development).
However, if the team takes the full responsibility of their products, then
they are also interested in the usage of the product and consider its impact
to the world.

For example, some developers working for CHEF (a company providing a
configuration management tool with the same name) were also interested in how
their customers are using the product and how this is supporting the social
good. In this case, these developers learned that one of their customers, the
Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),
uses the product at the border between Mexico and the United States of America
for running detention centres, ensuring deportation, and for implementing the
family separation policy. In this case, the developers took the Brundtland
definition (sustainability is about taking long-term responsibility for your
action) and the social aim of ending poverty by heart and decided that the
usage of their product does not confirm with their ethical values and has an
unintended social impact.

In the beginning, the developers brought their ethical interest to the
attention of CHEF’s management. However, the management at first referred to
the long-standing contract and to the fact that the product has been used by
ICE for many years (and nobody complained). The developers kept trying to
convince the management that due to the change in politics also the usage of
the product has shifted to the worse. However, the developers could only make
a difference once one of the developers decided to delete all the code he
contributed to the (Open Source) software. As a consequence, the product was
not usable anymore for two weeks which created enough pressure for the
management to decide on not renewing the contract [29].

It is important to understand that delivering value and satisfying the
customer with your product is not an agile teams’ sole responsibility. An
agile team is also responsible for the social impact of the product it is
creating. This means for a truly agile team, to stay in touch with the
customer for recognising any differences in the usage of the product. This
ongoing connection can be supported by automation such as monitoring, logging,
and having tests that observe the usage of the product.

####  IV-A2 The Environmental Pillar

The environmental pillar is mostly connected with the resources consumed. The
global e-waste monitor reports that in 2016, 44.7 million metric tons of
e-waste were generated – most often because the hardware gets (seemingly) too
soon outdated [30]. Additionally, as Nicola Jones reports, by 2030 information
technology might exceed 21% of the global energy consumption [31].

Thus, it gets more and more important to consider the energy consumption of
the products we are creating. Often it is assumed that hardware is cheap and
thus, there is no need to pay much attention to performance, because if the
software is not performing well enough we request that the hardware is getting
faster. This proves Wirth’s law from 1995 [32]: “Software is getting slower
more rapidly than hardware becomes faster”. As elaborated by Gröger and
Herterich, one of the reasons for this effect is the feature-creep where
features are developed for a product that are unnecessary (not used) and don’t
fit the intended software architecture [33].

The Mozilla foundation argues for the importance of examining cloud-based
software in particular. In their 2018 Internet Health Report, they concluded
that data centres have a similar carbon footprint as global air traffic with
the latter being 2% of all greenhouse gas emissions [34].

However, while some companies ignore the problem despite the protests of their
employees (see Amazon [35]), others address it by shifting toward renewable
energy for their data centres (see Google [36]). This means for an agile
organisation when deciding on a cloud infrastructure that it is essential to
also consider the carbon footprint of that data centre. Therefore, it is the
responsibility of an agile team to bring not only any technical information
but also information about energy consumption and the carbon footprint of the
infrastructure under question to the attention when the decision is up.

Another example is Mightybytes, a company focusing on developing digital
strategies to create the design and user experience for their clients [20]. By
doing so, they pay particularly attention to how much energy is consumed by
the designs they are creating and decide, for example, against including
videos with high energy consumption. Additionally, they also take care of the
environment the developers are in by ensuring the carpets are not toxic, there
is enough space for everyone, natural light and plants, plus the offices are
powered with renewable energy. Finally, other examples of initiatives that
explore energy aspects in ICT can be found in [37], Part II.

####  IV-A3 The Economical Pillar

The economic dimension is often understood as the economic balance, e.g. that
no nation (or company) grows economically at the cost of another one. Thus,
topics like fair trade or paying fairly are often discussed along these lines.
While this can be a topic also in (agile) software development, according to
our experience this is seldom the case because, agile developers are still
benefiting from good payments globally (however, this statement is not based
on any research). Yet, there is another economic impact for organisations,
because as the Cone Communications CSR study revealed, a company’s reputation
regarding their sustainability efforts will have an effect on both their
market share and their search for talent [38]. For example, as reported in
this study:

> “Nearly nine-in-10 Americans (89%) would switch brands to one that is
> associated with a good cause, given similar price and quality, compared with
> 66 percent in 1993. And whenever possible, a majority (79%) continue to seek
> out products that are socially or environmentally responsible”.

An economic impact can also be made by organisations and teams through sharing
learning. One example is Munich Re, one of the world’s leading re-insurers,
who got concerned about climate change already in the 70’s. At that time, they
began collecting and publishing research data about climate change. Protecting
the research data for a competitive advantage was never considered by Munich
Re because they realised that transparency allows them to learn from others
and to improve the data. Transparency, they decided will increase both the
general societal awareness of climate change and their own resilience [39].
This insight provided a great foundation for Munich Re’s further effort in
combining also the other two pillars (environmental and social) with a general
agile approach [40, 41].

Transparency is also key for all the lessons learned in the near future on how
to make the software we are creating more sustainable – only if we make those
learning transparent right away, we can make a huge difference for everyone,
everywhere.

###  IV-B Company-wide Agility and Holistic Sustainability

Implementing agility company-wide comes with a responsibility. Professionals
as well as companies who claim to be agile are expected to also “take actions
based on the best interests of society, public safety, and the environment”
[2]. Similarly, are corporate Agile Alliance members expected to “to help make
the software industry humane, productive, and sustainable” [1]. This means
agile companies are expected to have a systemic view and understand the impact
of the own actions and products created. This means, an organisation
implementing company-wide agility has to have a wider perspective than one
that is aiming at business agility only, as defined by the Business Agility
Institute [42]:

> “Business agility is the capacity and willingness of an organisation to
> adapt to, create, and leverage change for their customer’s benefit!”

Thus, business agility focuses on the customer only whereas agile
organisations aim for humanity and sustainability while having the society and
the environment in mind. In this section we will explore companies that made
quite some progress in implementing company-wide agility in that sense by
having a holistic perspective on all three pillars, thus acting with social,
environmental, and economical outcomes in mind.

####  IV-B1 Patagonia

Patagonia, Inc. is an American clothing company that markets and sells outdoor
clothing since 1973. The company has become recognised as a leading industry
innovator through its environmental and social initiatives, and the brand is
now considered synonymous with conscious business and high-quality outdoor
wear. In 2019, Patagonia received the 2019 Champions of the Earth award from
the United Nations [43], being recognised as an organisation that has
sustainability at the very core of its successful business model.

Patagonia’s mission statement is “We’re in business to save our home planet”.
They implement it by accomplishing a number of initiatives that inspires all
levels of the organisation, as donating profits from their Black Friday sales
(millions of dollars) to the environment through grassroots movements [44], or
creating their new office space by restoring condemned building using recycled
materials. The company states its benefits as: 1% for the Planet; Build the
Best Product with No Unnecessary Harm; Conduct Operations Causing No
Unnecessary Harm; Sharing Best Practices with Other Companies; Transparency;
and Providing a Supportive Work Environment.

Patagonia has been cited as an example for Agile Organisations, not only
because it has agile teams, but because they embody a north star across the
organisation that recognises the abundance of opportunities and resources
available, reducing the mindset of competition and scarcity and moving towards
co-creating value with and for all of our stakeholders [45].

Other examples of their practices that demonstrate their concern about the
three pillars are: encouraging consumers to think twice before making
premature replacements, or over-consuming; designing durable textile yarns
from recycled fabric; upholding a commitment to 100% organic cotton sourced
from over 100 regenerative small farms; sharing its best practices through the
Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Higg Index; paying back an “environmental tax”
to the earth by founding and supporting One Percent For The Planet; donating
its $10 million federal tax cut to fund environmental organisations addressing
the root causes of climate change.

As an example of social impact, Patagonia invests on improving the supply
chain to alleviate poverty. They screen their partners, as factories and more
recently farms, using Patagonia staff, selected third-party auditors and NGO
certifiers. They recognise a number of challenges, specially in the farm level
[46], pp. 30:

> “There can be land management and animal issues, as well as child labour,
> forced labour, pay irregularities, discrimination, and unsound health and
> safety conditions. These are often more difficult to resolve because of the
> complexities that extreme poverty, illiteracy and exploitation bring to this
> level of the supply chain.
>
> When it comes to land management, we’re most concerned with a farm’s use of
> chemicals and the impact its operations have on water, soil, biodiversity
> and carbon sequestration. For animal welfare, we look at humane treatment
> and slaughter. And when it comes to labour, we want to see safe and healthy
> working conditions, personal freedom, fair wages and honest payrolls.”

More recently, the company has started to support regenerative agriculture,
establishing a goal of sourcing 100% of their cotton and hemp from
regenerative farming by 2030. It is important to stress how relevant this
initiative is by introducing the meaning of regenerative. While the concept of
sustainable refers to a neutral point of not harming or damaging, the
regenerative concept goes beyond, stating that Humans are not only doing the
right things to nature, but actually are an integral part of it, learning how
to design as nature does [47]. This means we can reverse the damage we’ve
already done. Figure 3 illustrates the continuum between 1) the conventional
practices our society adopts in many areas, 2) sustainable practices, and 3)
regenerative practices.

Figure 3: Continuum between Conventional, Sustainable and Regenerative
practices [47].

Patagonia is a founding member of the Regenerative Organic Alliance
222https://regenorganic.org/, alongside Dr. Bronner’s, Compassion in World
Farming, Demeter and the Fair World Project and others. They created a
certification that showcases whether a product has been made using processes
to regenerate the land or not.

Thus, supporting regenerative agriculture is a bold step Patagonia is taking
that helps to reverse damage and create abundance. The reason is that
agricultural practices are a huge contributor to climate change, accountable
for around 25% of global carbon emissions. Regenerative agriculture has the
intention to restore highly degraded soil, enhancing the quality of water,
vegetation and land-productivity altogether. It makes possible not only to
increase the amount of soil organic carbon in existing soils, but to build new
soil [48]. If more companies follow this example, we will see more ecosystems
being restored and communities being benefited.

####  IV-B2 DSM-Niaga

DSM-Niaga is a joint venture of the startup Niaga and the multinational firm
Royal DSM. DSM-Niaga’s vision is to design for circularity of everyday
products. They started off with carpets and mattresses with the idea to stop
these -most often toxic- products to go into land-fills but instead to
decouple the material and use the very same material to go into the next
production cycle. To guide this idea, they defined three design principles
[49], illustrated by Figure 4:

  1. 1.

Keep it simple: Use the lowest possible diversity of materials.

  2. 2.

Clean materials only: Only use materials that have been tested for their
impact on our health and the environment.

  3. 3.

Use reversible connections: Connect different materials only in ways that
allow them to be disconnected after use.

Figure 4: Design Principles of DSM-Niaga

For ensuring clean materials only and also proving it, they developed for
example, a digital passport for every carpet based on blockchain technology.
With the focus on the customer, this passport makes the complete value chain
transparent. DSM-Niaga is also sharing their learning and pushing the industry
to design for circularity:

> “Moving forward, we will continue to focus our efforts and push boundaries
> to drive transparency and accountability across value chains. Indeed, with
> designers, producers and recyclers all needing to know what’s in a product
> in order to recycle it, it’s only a matter of time before digital product
> passports are in demand everywhere”.

DSM-Niaga is focusing on both sustainability and company-wide agility. The
firm is actually a teal organisation, that is a company defined by self-
organisation where for example, employees are guided by the organisation’s
purpose and not by orders [50]. According to Rhea Ong Yiu, an Agile Coach at
DSM-Niaga, the mother company (Royal DSM) is constantly learning from DSM-
Niaga. Under the leadership of Feike Sijbesma, CEO and Chairman of the
Managing Board, Royal DSM sold its entire petrochemical business. This has
also been recognised. As a consequence, Feike Sijbesma has been appointed as
Global Climate Leader for the World Bank Group, Co-Chair of the Carbon Pricing
Leadership Coalition, and as Co-Chair of the Impact Committee of the World
Economic Forum where he is one of the originators of the “Stakeholder
Principles in the COVID Era”. The latter states among other things [51]:

> “we must continue our sustainability efforts unabated, to bring our world
> closer to achieving shared goals, including the Paris climate agreement and
> the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda”.

Worth mentioning that the business strategy of Royal DSM (and as such as well
of DSM-Niaga) is based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The sustainable development goals that are in particular focus for DSM-Niaga
are [52]:

  * •

Good health and well-being (Goal 3): Ensuring healthy lives and promoting
well-being for all at all ages.

  * •

Responsible consumption and production (Goal 12): Ensuring sustainable
consumption and production patterns.

  * •

Climate action (Goal 13): Taking urgent action to combat climate change and
its impact.

####  IV-B3 Sparda-Bank Munich

Sparda-Bank is the largest cooperative bank in Bavaria, with more than 300,000
members. The bank maintains on its website a comprehensive description on how
they implement all Economy for the Common Good (ECG) values, as well as their
Common Good Balance Sheets and the certificate. Sparda was part of the first
companies that agreed on ECG goals, back in 2010, being the first - and so far
only - bank that operates according to the principles of the common good
economy.

At the same time, the company keeps looking for innovation and agility [53].
So the organisation needs and it is opened to technological solutions. Due to
its own values, it would have to carefully examine the need for and impact of
the tools that it adopts. In fact, Sparda does have agile coaches and
digitised solutions for their clients. They have also regularly had formats
such as “World-Café” or smaller events with a “marketplace character” that are
carried out in order to obtain the opinion of as many participants as possible
and to initiate a dialogue. The design thinking method is adopted to support
their product and projects solutioning.

The company claims on its website [54] that they are climate neutral and
provides an annual CO2 balance. They reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the
extent to what is technically and economically possible, or otherwise by
purchasing climate certificates (or permits) in accordance with the Kyoto
Protocol, which [55]:

> “operationalizes the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
> by committing industrialized countries and economies in transition to limit
> and reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in accordance with agreed
> individual targets […]
>
> One important element of the Kyoto Protocol was the establishment of
> flexible market mechanisms, which are based on the trade of emissions
> permits”.

Sparda-Bank has other initiatives that cover different aspects of the common
good matrix. For instance, planting a tree for every new member or agreements
to provide green electricity with special tariff for their clients. When
financing an electric or hybrid car or an e-bike, Sparda-Bank Munich customers
receive a reduced interest rate. They also state having no customer
relationships with or investments in companies whose core business is in the
armaments sector, as well as many other restrictions published on their
website [56].

There are other examples related to suppliers and employees: they buy dishes
and towels from works for the blind and disabled; they work to reduce the
difference between the lowest salary and the highest salary (CEO)(which is
currently published as 1:13.7 ratio); and finally they don’t pay commissions
or establish individual goals related to salary, only goals at a team level.

##  V Conclusion

This paper examined that agility can contribute to sustainability. As we have
seen, the Agile Manifesto in general and the principles in particular can
provide guidance to sustainability [3]. We have presented some achievements of
the companies combining agility and sustainability. We explored examples of
companies focusing on one of the dimensions only, as well as companies taking
all three pillars into account. Certainly, if an agile company takes
sustainability seriously, then it has to take an holistic view and look at all
three dimensions at once - at people (social), planet (environmental), and
profit (economic).

We have seen that most of these sample companies in the case studies are
concentrating on using agile development and sustainability yet, without the
focus on leveraging the one with the other. Especially the companies following
a holistic approach implement sustainability by ICT. Using an agile approach
for implementing sustainability in ICT seems to be a relatively new field.

###  V-A Criticism

Sustainability became a trend and a symbol for progressive individuals,
movements, and organisations, which sometimes leads to the so-called green-
washing. It happens when it seems to be important to have a reputation of
being sustainable yet, not everyone who claims to live up to it really does
it. Often this is supported by advertising for ones own sustainable reputation
as [20] exemplifies:

> “One hosting provider even claims in its marketing materials that it plants
> a tree for every new account, which is wonderful, but doesn’t move us closer
> to an Internet powered by renewable energy”.

Sustainability and its deeper implications are still not well-understood by
society, despite more diffused, in particular because of the UN 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development. Initiatives on many sectors, from business to
NGOs and universities can easily distort or simplify it, intentionally or not.
Taking the example of companies, we illustrated agile organisations that aim
at balancing the 3 pillars in section IV-B, considering BCorps and ECG
certified companies. It is important to be aware of the criticism (or
limitations) around these models.

The main critique to BCorps and similar movements is that these models still
rely on capitalism as the core mechanism - and world view - for our economy,
“ignoring the possibility that capitalism itself, as it is largely practised
today, might be at least one cause of the problems we are seeking to solve”
[57]. This analysis is also supported by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph
Stiglitz [58]:

> “Like the dieter who would rather do anything to lose weight than actually
> eat less, this business elite would save the world through social-impact
> investing, entrepreneurship, sustainable capitalism, philanthro-capitalism,
> artificial intelligence, market-driven solutions. They would fund a million
> of these buzzwordy programs rather than fundamentally question the rules of
> the game— or even alter their own behavior to reduce the harm of the
> existing distorted, inefficient and unfair rules”.

High expectations are on digitalisation for sustainability by ICT. One example
is that it is the replacement for paper, but, all digital products (thus, also
the paper replacements) consume energy. Moreover, as Lorenz M. Hilty points
out in [33]:

> “So far, neither in the case of air travel nor in the case of lifespan of
> household goods has the hope been fulfilled that due to digitalization the
> material and energy intensity of our activities would be reduced. It rather
> became evident in the digital age that providers turned the principle of
> intangible value creation through software into its opposite by stimulating
> or even forcing material consumption through software”.

One reason is Wirth’s law (Software is getting slower more rapidly than
hardware becomes faster) that an update in software often requires the
exchange of hardware [32]. Another reason is the rebound effect: the effect
that environmental friendliness is a selling point that leads to overall
higher consumption than before. And a third reason (related to the rebound
effect) is, that the environmental friendly product is often used in addition
- and not instead - to the environmental unfriendly product. An example for
the latter are many car sharing offerings that are not used for substituting
private cars but, instead, for substituting travelling by (local) public
transport [33]. Thus, the rebound effect is the main controversy for all
achievements of digitalisation regarding sustainability.

###  V-B Outlook

Although agile development promises sustainability for a long time, it has not
been addressed sincerely thus far. However, there are some promising
developments and also concrete ideas for delivering on agility’s promise. Most
importantly, we have to increase the awareness of the impact of agility so
that at least agile teams can make conscious decisions on effecting the
social, environmental, or economical dimension of sustainability.

An agile team can for example, consider the energy consumption in their
definition of done as well as via respective tests and monitoring. Individual
teams and companies might discover ways to improve their own and their
ecosystem’s sustainability. Yet, only if these learning are shared and the
effort improving sustainability is a collaborative one, can we really make a
difference. As pointed out by Eckstein & Buck, a company claiming to be agile
also has to aim for sustainability and as such needs to live up to the
following values [59] p. 196, also illustrated by Figure 5:

  * •

Self-organisation: An agile company should understand itself as a part of an
ecosystem, belonging to itself, other companies, and the whole society.

  * •

Transparency: An agile company makes its learning and doing transparent for
the greater benefit for all.

  * •

Constant customer focus: An agile company understands all aspects of its
ecosystem – be it social, environmental, or economic – as its customer.

  * •

Continuous learning: An agile company learns continuously from and with its
ecosystem to make the whole world a better place.

Figure 5: Four values guiding agile companies [59]

Fundamental for agile companies that are sustainability-aware is the need for
a connected perspective [59], p. 198: “This connected perspective incorporates
the surrounding environment (economic, ecologic, societal, and social) in
which companies operate.” Thus, companies have to fulfil their role as active
members of the society. One way for doing so, is by joining networks that
focus on improving the economic, social, and environmental aspects of the
society. Sample networks are: transparency international, global compact, fair
labour association, or the climate group [60, 61, 62, 63].

Sustainability is not only important for (agile) companies because it’s part
of the Agile’s vision [1, 2]. It is also important because it will be the key
factor that decides on the survival of companies both in terms of finding
talent and clients. This is the reason why some companies have already a
sustainability officer in place who ensures sustainability in its many domains
- environmental, economic, and social. It is the agile community’s task to
support the people in this role in making sustainability real.

With digitalisation becoming more momentum and the core competency of agile in
software development more needs to be investigated in how agile development
can make an important -positive- contribution for achieving higher
sustainability. Because, as stated by the Karlskrona Manifesto [64]:

> “Software in particular plays a central role in sustainability. It can push
> us towards growing consumption of resources, growing inequality in society,
> and lack of individual self- worth. But it can also create communities and
> enable thriving of individual freedom, democratic processes, and resource
> conservation”.

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