Sustainable Development and Innovation in Green Supply Chains
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2026
Special Issue Editors
Interests: business interoperability; supply chain management; mcdm; DSM; axiomatic design
2. Laboratório Associado de Sistemas Inteligentes, LASI, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal
Interests: lean manufacturing; green management; sustainable supply chain management; business performance; Industry 4.0; intelligent production systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: circular economy; industrial symbiosis; sustainability; additive symbiotic networks
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
1. Introduction & Scientific Background
The accelerating pressure of global decarbonization targets, supported by the EU Circular Economy Action Plan and the UN SDGs, has elevated supply chains as critical systems for achieving measurable environmental and socio-economic sustainability outcomes. Traditional linear production and distribution structures exhibit limited capacity to address systemic challenges such as resource depletion, end-of-life recovery, and Scope 3 emissions quantification.
In parallel, emerging technological advances in Industry 4.0/5.0—spanning additive manufacturing, digital twins, cyber–physical systems, IoT-enabled sensing, and spatial decision-support analytics—are enabling new optimization paradigms, enhanced predictive modeling, and multi-echelon sustainability assessments in modern supply chains.
2. Aim & Journal Scope Alignment
This Special Issue aims to consolidate high-impact research contributions that rigorously integrate sustainability science, operations engineering, and decision-analytic methodologies. We invite submissions that develop new theoretical constructs, computational models, uncertainty-aware optimization frameworks, and data-driven approaches supporting the design, governance, and performance evaluation of green and circular supply chains.
3. Suggested Themes
In this Special Issue, original research articles, case studies and reviews are welcome.
Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Circular economy and resources valorization in industrial networks;
- Additive manufacturing integration for sustainable operations;
- Last-mile delivery optimization;
- Multi-criteria decision analysis, multi-objective optimization, and intelligent decision support for green supply chains;
- Spatial analytics, geocomputational models, and infrastructure planning for sustainable logistics;
- Digital transparency, traceability, and Industry 4.0/5.0 technologies in supply chains;
Dr. Pedro Espadinha Cruz
Dr. Susana Duarte
Dr. Inês Ferreira
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-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.
Keywords
- sustainable supply chains
- circular economy
- advanced manufacturing
- resource management
- multi-criteria decision-making
- multi-objective optimization
- spatial analytics
- Industry 4.0/5.0
- cyber-physical systems
- digital twins
- IoT
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