Footprints on Sustainable Consumption and Production in Emerging Economies

Dear Colleagues,

Material footprints present an overview of the status, trends and alternative scenarios of global, regional, and local resource use. Footprints comprise both direct resource use (direct material consumption use or direct energy consumption use) within a certain geographic boundary and the imported resources needed to support various economic activities (production, i.e., final demand, consumption, and infrastructure use) within that boundary. The footprint approach, thus, represents the global scope of the resource use activities of different geographic scales (city, nation, or region).

Footprints can focus on different subsets of activities within geography – such as consumption, production, and infrastructure use– that informs different policy/planning solutions. Contributors are encouraged to provide examples at multiple scales (regional, national, local /city) to showcase how a systems approach, and specifically through the lens of material footprints, can shape the impacts of interest on the SDGs, and can be used to support decision- and policy-making. This Special Issue proposes to include all 4 resource-footprints, representing the four resource categories of energy, materials, land, and water. These four resource footprints would be supplemented with information on environmental pollution potential.

This Special Issue will focus and encourage select case studies or cities in different nations, and may include data analysis on energy and GHG footprints, water footprints, and material footprints related to infrastructure provision in cities or nations. For instance, (1) Delhi, India where present-day challenges include high levels of air pollution, traffic congestion, large slum population, and severe water scarcity.; (2) Several cities in China – illustrating the twinning impact of urbanization with industrialization and opportunities for sustainable consumption, production, and infrastructure change; (3) Cities in developed nations, including US cities where both energy/GHG and water footprints have been developed. Through energy-GHG footprints and water footprints, these case studies highlight business-as-usual cases and business-as-usual-cases with more inclusive development and possible strategies to reduce negative and improve positive environmental and human wellbeing impacts

This Special Issue focuses on material flows and present data and indicators for direct (territorial) material flows and material footprints to cover production, consumption, and infrastructure perspectives. These perspectives satisfy different policy approaches and need to be seen as complementary to present a full picture of a countries domestic and global responsibility, and provide best practices and recommendations for planning in various infrastructure sectors – such as energy systems and transportation systems. Subsequent reports will extend the regular monitoring to cover additional aspects of natural resource use systems that are materials and waste, energy and emissions, and water and land. Direct territorial natural resource accounts should address the four footprints (materials, energy, water, and emissions).

In terms of added value, as compared to existing and ongoing products by other organizations, this Special Issue is differentiated by the (1) integrated and whole-systems approach used to cover all natural 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 the development of policy-relevant recommendations for the sustainable management of natural resources; (4) the ongoing development of a strong and responsive science-policy interface; and (5) the regular tracking of data aligned across scales, for multiple natural resources and multiple impacts. Contributors should submit papers that contribute to the following:

• To understand the current global and regional status and trends of natural resource use.
• To manage the research implications of increasing global resource consumption on the environment, society, and economy, and to the achievement of the SDGs.
• To achieve (and have been achieved) the co-benefits through improving resource efficiency and sustainable natural resource management.
• To analyze the sustainable consumption and production (SCP) policy options and innovative technical approaches that have thus far been successfully employed to achieve the benefits of sustainable natural resource management.
• To recommend and drawn for transitioning to the sustainable management of natural resources.
• This Special Issue will contribute to more specific knowledge regarding the footprint SCP implications of different indicators and the different kinds of materials used. Besides the previously mentioned themes and ideas, authors are welcome to contact us to discuss other possible footprint sub-topics. The Special Issue Editors have intentionally kept the above list of suggested topics short so as to stimulate effective methods and thereby encourage prospective authors to adopt a variety of footprint on sustainable consumption and production perspectives in approaching this subject. All submissions must fit within the domain statement of the journal.

Prof. Dr. Anthony SF Chiu
Prof. Dr. Ming-Lang Tseng
Dr. Kuo-Jui Wu
Dr. Mohd Helmi Ali
Guest Editors

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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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.

• Footprint
• Sustainable consumption
• Production perspectives