Embedding Sustainability in Archimate: A Modeldriven Threshold-Based Approach for Early Noncompliance Detection

Organizations must increasingly integrate sustainability into their enterprise architecture (EA), addressing concerns like energy consumption and carbon emissions. Despite ArchiMate's widespread adoption as an EA modeling language, it lacks built-in support for environmental requirements. As a result, sustainability considerations often arise post-design, leading to expensive late-stage modifications. This paper introduces a model-driven approach that extends ArchiMate's meta-model via the open-source tool Archi, incorporating a dedicated sustainability constraint element. The proposed element allows architects to set measurable thresholds - such as power usage limits - and link them directly to relevant architectural components. We integrated this new element into Archi's palette and developed a jArchi script to validate threshold compliance. The script identifies noncompliance during early design stages by comparing projected usage against predefined limits, offering immediate feedback. A case study on marine mammals' localization demonstrates the method's effectiveness in detecting violations and guiding architectural enhancements. Our results show that embedding sustainability constraints within EA models fosters proactive environmental governance while minimizing costly late-stage revisions.