Innovating for Sustainability: Digital and Circular Strategies in the Twin Transition Era

Dear Colleagues,

The twin transition—digital and ecological—represents a transformative force reshaping societies, industries, and territories in the pursuit of sustainable development. This Special Issue focuses on how innovation enables and accelerates this dual transformation, particularly through the lens of circular economy principles and remanufacturing practices, which are essential levers for promoting resource efficiency, resilience, and long-term environmental sustainability.

The scope of the issue includes interdisciplinary and applied research exploring the integration of digital technologies (e.g., AI, IoT, blockchain) with circular economy strategies across diverse contexts: industry, urban and regional systems, households, public policy, and civil society. We particularly welcome papers that address business models, socio-technical systems, governance frameworks, and monitoring tools that foster innovation and sustainability. Topics such as remanufacturing, reuse, industrial symbiosis, and product-service systems are central to this call.

The purpose of the Special Issue is to expand the body of literature on sustainability transitions by promoting systemic, cross-sectoral, and multilevel approaches. By bringing together contributions from technology, environmental science, economics, and the social sciences, this collection will highlight both theoretical insights and practical solutions for implementing the twin transition globally and locally.

This Special Issue directly contributes to Sustainability’s mission by addressing integrated socio-technical approaches to sustainable development, tools to quantify and monitor sustainability, and policies to support the transition. It aims to fill current gaps in the literature where digital innovation, remanufacturing, and circular strategies converge, offering both conceptual frameworks and empirical evidence to support more effective sustainability pathways.

Contributions include (but are not limited to):

• Environmental impact monitoring methodologies;
• Sustainable and smart mobility solutions;
• Household energy and emissions reduction;
• R-strategies and circular economy practices;
• Digital tools for sustainability;
• Consumer behaviour in the twin transition context;
• Policy and governance innovations;
• Circular business models;
• Urban and territorial applications;
• Socio-technical transitions;
• Systemic and integrative approaches;
• Waste management performance across regions;
• Cross-sectoral case studies.

Prof. Dr. Donato Iacobucci
Dr. Marco Ciro Liscio
Dr. Paolo Sospiro
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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-anonymized 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.