Background: Sustainable software engineering (SSE) means creating software in a way that meets present needs without undermining our collective capacity to meet our future needs. It is typically conceptualized as several intersecting dimensions or “pillars”—environmental, social, economic, technical and individual. However; these pillars are theoretically underdeveloped and require refinement.

Objectives: The objective of this paper is to generate a better theory of SSE.

Method: First, a scoping review was conducted to understand the state of research on SSE and identify existing models thereof. Next, a meta-synthesis of qualitative research on SSE was conducted to critique and improve the existing models identified.

Results: 961 potentially relevant articles were extracted from five article databases. These articles were de-duplicated and then screened independently by two screeners, leaving 243 articles to examine. Of these, 109 were non-empirical, the most common empirical method was systematic review, and no randomized controlled experiments were found. Most papers focus on ecological sustainability (158) and the sustainability of software products (148) rather than processes. A meta-synthesis of 36 qualitative studies produced several key propositions, most notably, that sustainability is stratified (has different meanings at different levels of abstraction) and multisystemic (emerges from interactions among multiple social, technical, and sociotechnical systems).

Conclusion: The academic literature on SSE is surprisingly non-empirical. More empirical evaluations of specific sustainability interventions are needed. The sustainability of software development products and processes should be conceptualized as multisystemic and stratified, and assessed accordingly.