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The term bioeconomy was first explored as a means of substituting resources (e.g., biomass versus oil) and only later as a way of biotechnological innovation. Thus, the idea is to minimise waste and increase efficiency. The European Commision defined the bioeconomy as the economy that uses renewa...

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, aims to achieve global peace and prosperity. The ambitious aims of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to protect the planet, eradicate poverty, and provide peace as well as prosperity for a...

“Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability” is the most populated section of the journal and also the oldest. Our papers address new empirical findings that are of interest to a broader audience, theoretical analyses explaining new phenomena or puzzles, or the development of the...

Energy Sustainability aims to provide a leading multidisciplinary platform on innovation, research, technology development and demonstration in the fields of sustainable energy deployment. Sustainable energy deployment has a multilateral impact at local to global scales with social, ecological, h...

Environmental sustainability is a broad concept that brings together the ecological and socio-economic components of sustainability. Environmental sustainability is closely related to the maintenance of environmental security, defined by Müller and colleagues in 2008 as: [environmental secur...

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (Global Status Report for Buildings,  2020), the building and construction sector accounted for about 39% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Energy demand from buildings and the construction of buildings continues to rise, driven...

The purpose of the section is to study and manage hazards and reduce the damage they create. Hazards can be natural, anthropogenic, or a combination of the two. Natural hazards can be classified into several broad categories: geological, hydrological, and meteorological hazards. Anthropogenic haz...

The section Health, Well-Being and Sustainability aims to serve as a leading interdisciplinary platform for advancing knowledge on the complex interconnections between human health, human well-being, and sustainable systems. It seeks to promote research that bridges the gaps between envi...

Globally, the levels of pollution are becoming increasingly perturbing. The increasing levels of pollution can be linked to industrialization and urbanization, which attract the attention of researchers for their severe consequences on the quality of life and health of citizens. Pollution also ha...

The psychology of sustainability and sustainable development (Di Fabio, 2017a, 2017b; Di Fabio and Rosen, 2018) constitutes a new research area in the field of Sustainability Science. It contributes to sustainability issues by introducing a psychological perspective and promoting the trans-discip...

Sustainable utilization of resources has been central to the sustainability agenda since the beginning. Oral traditions in rural societies have recognized the need to sustain renewable resources since ancient times, and a written tradition exploring the conditions that would ensure sustainable ha...

Social ecology is an inter- and transdisciplinary field of science concerned with the analysis of society–nature interaction on all relevant organizational, spatial, as well as temporal levels and scales. By combining expertise from social and natural sciences as well as the humanities, and...

Soil is the fundamental provider of all resources and services at the base of terrestrial ecosystem functioning and agricultural productivity, yet this role is nowadays threatened by the growing impacts of the unyielding exploitation of agricultural land, overgrazing, population pressure, polluti...

Section Sustainability in Geographic Science aims to study the sustainable development of human beings from a comprehensive geography perspective. The section not only focuses on the theory and practical research of physical geography, human geography, and geographic information science ...

All the indicators of the world’s biodiversity status show that it is declining and has been so for d...

The global population is set to increase to over 10 billion by 2050 and, with economic development, the average wealth of individuals in developing nations is set to rise—this brings with it a set of challenges for agriculture and the food supply chain. To date, the increase in the supply o...

It has now been just over 30 years since the publication of the Brundtland Commission’s report “Our Common Future”, which defined the concept of sustainable development for society in general, and just over 20 years since the publication of Anastas’ and Warner’s semi...

Education in diverse forms and multiple contexts allows each generation to pass on its culture, discoveries, successes, and failures to the next. Without inter-generational education, very little in a human context can be sustainable. Education is also important in formulating, challenging, and d...

This Section discusses research topics related to sustainable engineering and sustainable science. Over the past few decades, sustainable ideas have been introduced into engineering-related fields at an astonishing speed. This has caused related industries to adopt eco-friendly materials applicat...

The purpose of the Sustainable Food initiative is to help guide food systems toward an equitable and sustainable future. Sustainable food systems/chains are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, as well as human well-being and social equity. To be sustainable, food systems als...

The Section “Sustainable Forestry” will focus on original research and reviews regarding the sustainable development of forestry. In this framework, studies concerning the forest ecology, biology, conservation and management, the advances in the mensuration, modeling and monitoring te...

Sustainable management begins from the concept of sustainable development and combines it with the concept of management. There are three aspects relative to sustainable development: the environment, the needs of present and future generations, and the economy. In using these bra...

As the global population and affluence have increased, so has the use of various materials, in volume, diversity, and distance transported. Included here are raw materials, minerals, synthetic chemicals (including hazardous substances), manufactured products, food, living organisms, and waste. By...

The oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface and sustain the livelihood of three billion people. However, the sustainability of our oceans is under severe threat due to warming, acidification, eutrophication, overfishing, and pollution. For instance, coral reefs worldwide are whitening at an alarm...

The world is experiencing a new stage of development in the context of sustainable development. In the establishment of sound products and services, bringing social and economic benefits and realizing sustainable economic and social development has become a major research topic. Sustainable produ...

Sustainable transportation studies new methodologies, techniques, and developments that identify, evaluate, and/or solve social, economic, environmental, and climate issues.

From a social and economic point of view, accessibility, equity, social justice, and externalities produced by cong...

Sustainable urban and rural development is about improving the quality of life in a locality, including ecological, cultural, political, institutional, social and economic components without leaving any burden—e.g., the result of a reduced natural capital and an excessive local debt—o...

Sustainable water management means to ensure using water in a way that meets both current and future socio-economical ecological demand. This section is aimed at improving the development and utilization of sustainable water resources management to meet increasing water demand worldwide. This sec...

Tourism is widely recognized as one of the most progressive industries that helps to guide global sustainable development. In particular, the UNESCO World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Program have led the way to protect and manage many of the world’s cultural, environmental, and heritag...

Sustainable waste management and the recovery of materials from waste (recycling) are one of the pillars of the circular economy, but at the same time many waste management process and technologies can still be considered to be in their infancy; in many countries waste management is still mainly ...