Corporate Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

The material footprint is to present an overview of the status, trends, and alternative scenarios of global, regional, and local resource use. Corporate sustainability comprises both direct resource use (direct material consumption use or direct energy consumption use) as well as the imported resources needed to support various economic activities (production, i.e., final demand, consumption, and infrastructure use) within that supply chain boundary. Risk assessment in the corporate sustainability approach thus represents the supply chain scope of each resource use activity. Still, the uncertainties have to be involved in the analytical approach.

Corporate sustainability can focus on different subsets of activities within the supply chain—such as consumption, production, and infrastructure use—which informs different policy/planning solutions. Contributors are encouraged to provide examples at multiple supply chain scales to showcase how a systematic approach, and specifically through the lens of material application, can shape impacts of interest to sustainable development and can be used to support decision and policy-making. This SI is proposed to include the corporate sustainability approach, including the four resource categories of energy, materials, land, and water. However, risk assessment would be supplemented with information on environmental pollution potential.

This SI will focus on and encourage select case studies or cities in different nations and may include data analysis on corporate sustainability related to infrastructure provision in the supply chain. All case studies highlight the business-as-usual case, with more inclusive development and possible strategies to reduce negative and improve positive environmental and human wellbeing impacts.

In terms of added value compared to existing and ongoing products by other organizations, this SI is differentiated by the (1) integrated and whole-systems approach used to cover all corporate sustainability resources and the three dimensions of sustainability; (2) unique focus on natural resource-use-related requirements for delivering on sustainable development, including considering the impact of the extraction, use, and disposal of those resources on natural, social, and economic systems; (3) the use of forward-looking scenarios as well as practice-based examples that support development of policy-relevant recommendations for the sustainable management of resources; (4) the ongoing development of a strong and responsive science–policy interface; and (5) the regular tracking of data aligned across scale, for multiple natural resources and multiple impacts. The contributors may reach these contribution points:

• To understand the current global and regional status and trends of resource use in the supply chain;
• To manage the research implications of increasing corporate sustainable resource consumption on the environment, society, and economy, and to the achievement of the sustainable development goals;
• To achieve the co-benefits through improving resource efficiency and sustainable supply chain management;
• To analyze the corporate sustainability options and innovative technical approaches that have thus far been successfully employed to achieve the benefits of sustainable resource management;
• To recommend and draw conclusions to transition to the sustainable management of resources.

This TC contributes by being more specific about the corporate sustainability implications of different indicators and the different kinds of materials used. In addition to the abovementioned themes and ideas, this TC welcomes authors to contact us to discuss other possible subtopics.

Prof. Dr. Ming-Lang Tseng
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Risk and Financial Management is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.