Governance, Quantification, and Justice in Circular Economy for Carbon Neutrality
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 42
Special Issue Editor
Interests: sustainable solid waste management; environmental policy and management; industrial symbiosis; circular economy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The pursuit of carbon neutrality calls for a shift from linear production and consumption to sustainable and circular models. While links between circular economy strategies and low-carbon transitions are widely discussed, the roles of environmental governance, rigorous methodological quantification, socio-behavioral changes, and equity in shaping real-world outcomes remain under explored. This Special Issue, “Governance, Quantification, and Justice in Circular Economy for Carbon Neutrality”, addresses this gap by centering environmental quality and social justice, with particular attention given to synergistic pollution and carbon reduction. We seek contributions that show how circular strategies can be robustly assessed and effectively governed to deliver measurable improvements and just outcomes beyond carbon-only metrics or energy system perspectives.
We welcome original research, reviews, and case studies on the following topics:
- Life cycle assessment, material flow analysis, input output analysis, and hybrid approaches to quantify trade-offs, rebound effects, uncertainty, and burden shifting;
- Coupling and decoupling between economic development and environmental pressures under circular and low-carbon transitions using transparent metrics and credible identification strategies;
- Governance and policy instruments including extended producer responsibility, green finance, eco design standards, green public procurement, regulation, and monitoring and verification mechanisms;
- Socio-behavioral and equity dimensions, including environmental justice, distributional impacts, public acceptance, trust in labels and standards, and behavioral responses to policy packages;
- Innovations for waste valorization, industrial symbiosis, and closed-loop supply chains with quantified environmental and distributional outcomes.
Out-of-scope submissions mainly focused on energy technology development, energy systems engineering, or large-scale energy transition modeling without a central contribution to circular economy quantification, governance, or justice.
Dr. Yuan Tao
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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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.
Keywords
- decarbonization and pollution reduction
- industrial symbiosis
- resource metabolism
- economic development
- environmental pressures
- environmental governance
- life cycle assessment (LCA)
- material flow analysis (MFA)
- socio-behavioral change
- environmental justice
- waste valorization
- industrial symbiosis
- sustainable development
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