Enhancing Environmental and Sustainability Policy: Assessing the Past and charting a Course for the Future

Dear Colleagues,

The journal Sustainability, an international, cross-disciplinary, scholarly and open access journal of environmental, cultural, economic, and social sustainability of human beings invites your submission for a Special Issue on “Enhancing Environmental and Sustainability Policy: Assessing the Past and Charting a Course for the Future.”

Thirty years after the release of the report “Our Common Future” by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland, 1987) the world continues to grapple with major—and frequently worsening—problems, affecting virtually all ecosystems and spanning all geographic scales. Recently, some 16,000 scientists from 184 countries published a second warning that without concerted efforts to transform our economies, the planet is headed towards "substantial and irreversible" harm (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2017). While progress has been made on many fronts, ranging from technological innovations to governmental commitments and individual behavioral modifications, much more needs to be done if we are to avert substantial environmental crises and achieve sustainable balances between human needs and desires and ecological capacities to meet them.

This Special Issue calls for contributions that address how we can translate 30+ years of environmental and sustainability research to chart a simultaneously ambitious and yet pragmatic path forward to make sure the next 30 years bring about the necessary systematic transformations to maintain and protect critical ecosystems and services.

Contributions examining the drivers of unsustainable human activities and/or demonstrating concrete solutions are welcome. Of particular interest are papers that (i) tackle some of the most persistent and intractable hurdles towards sustainability, (ii) demonstrate solutions that are scalable, transferable, and/or can be tailored to specific local or issue-dependent needs in their implementation, and/or (iii) provide particular benefits to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. They are expected to represent sustainability research across a wide range of disciplines, as well as inter- and transdisciplinary studies.

While innovative ideas and strategies are welcome, authors are encouraged to consider their feasibility in light of current broader geo-political, economic, and societal trends in their analyses.

References:

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• environmental management
• environmental policy
• policy assessment
• resource conservation management
• environmental ethics, environmental justice
• sustainable development goals
• sustainability assessment
• international environmental law
• climate change
• renewable energy policy
• low-carbon economy
• air quality
• biodiversity
• sustainable forestry
• sustainable fisheries
• environmental and sustainability indicators
• environmental systems thinking and modeling
• circular economy
• environmental conflict
• environmental history
• cultural environmentalism
• ecological resilience