Dear Colleagues,

The evaluation of environmental impact is becoming increasingly important in the research agenda in several fields, due to the urgent need to safeguard natural resources and seek sustainability. From the design to the management of industrial processes and services, environmental sustainability is often one important objective for companies and institutions, next to the economic one, as more and more national legislations are aiming at decreasing the environmental burden of human activities.

Assessing environmental impacts can be complex; sustainability has to be evaluated over time, and the variables to measure and the interacting factors can be numerous. Several methods to assess environmental impact exist, entailing advantages and criticalities and focusing on different aspects of environmental sustainability, but not all of them are effective tools to support decision making.

Simulation modelling is a widely applied methodology for decision making that is often used in the management phase to assess the performance of a system or to compare different design alternatives. Simulation offers several benefits, such as the possibility to model uncertainties and explore different scenarios, the ability to study a system over time considering different timeframes, and the possibility to consider multiple objectives and variables. This dynamicity can fit particularly well when environmental impacts have to be evaluated in a system, as simulation models can adapt to different levels of complexity and capture interactions among critical factors.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to collect original studies focusing on the application of simulation modelling as a tool to assess environmental sustainability. We encourage the submission of papers that deal with environmental issues in different sectors (e.g., manufacturing, services, supply chain management, etc.) contributing to address the sustainability challenge through simulation. Papers can be original research articles, reviews, or meta-analyses, and can be focused on environmental and sustainability assessment through simulation modelling applied to the following areas (but not limited to these):

• Agriculture, aquaculture and livestock;
• Construction;
• Ecosystem and climate;
• Energy;
• Human health;
• Information systems;
• Land use;
• Manufacturing;
• Supply chain;
• Transportation and logistics;
• Urban and community planning;
• Waste management, recycling, and reuse;
• Water resources;
• Mining;
• Social behavior;
• Tourism.

Dr. Fabiana Tornese
Dr. Antonio Padovano
Dr. Pier Paolo Miglietta
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.

• environmental sustainability
• simulation modelling
• environmental impact assessment