Governance Mechanisms for Sustainability Transformation: Innovations Across Organizational, Societal and Environmental Domains

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue explores the complex interplay between governance mechanisms and sustainability transformation across organizational, societal, and environmental domains. As global challenges intensify—from climate change to social inequity—effective governance frameworks are becoming essential for driving meaningful sustainability transitions. For this Special Issue, we invite authors to contribute papers examining innovative governance models that facilitate transformative change toward more sustainable futures. Papers may address multi-level governance approaches, policy integration, stakeholder engagement strategies, institutional arrangements, and decision-making processes that enable or constrain sustainability transformations. We particularly welcome research on governance innovations that bridge traditional silos, promote systems thinking, and catalyze paradigm shifts in how societies organize to address sustainability challenges. Both theoretical frameworks and empirical studies are encouraged, especially those offering comparative analyses across different contexts, sectors, or geographical regions. This Special Issue aims to advance our understanding of how governance structures can be redesigned to accelerate sustainability transformations, overcome implementation barriers, and create conditions that enable systemic change. Ultimately, this collection seeks to contribute actionable insights for policymakers, organizational leaders, and practitioners working to navigate complex sustainability transitions in an increasingly interconnected world.

This Special Issue welcomes original research articles and critical reviews on the following topics:

1. Multi-level Governance Frameworks: This includes studies examining how governance mechanisms operating at different scales (local, regional, national, global) interact to enable or constrain sustainability transformations.
2. Policy Integration for Sustainability: This includes research on approaches to integrate sustainability considerations across traditionally separate policy domains and overcome fragmentation in governance systems.
3. Stakeholder Engagement and Collaborative Governance: This includes analyses of participatory approaches that meaningfully involve diverse stakeholders in sustainability governance and decision-making processes.
4. Institutional Innovation for Sustainability: This includes investigations of novel institutional arrangements, rules, and norms that support transformative change toward more sustainable practices and systems.
5. Governance for Just Transitions: This includes studies exploring how governance mechanisms can ensure that sustainability transformations address social equity concerns and create inclusive outcomes.
6. Adaptive Governance in Complex Systems: This includes research on governance approaches that can respond to uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change in socio-ecological systems.
7. Corporate Sustainability Governance: This includes analyses of organizational governance structures, leadership approaches, and decision-making processes that drive corporate sustainability transformations.
8. Digital Governance for Sustainability: This includes examinations of how digital technologies and data-driven approaches are reshaping sustainability governance and introducing new forms of participation and accountability.
9. Metrics and Accountability Systems: This includes studies on governance frameworks for measuring, monitoring, and evaluating progress toward sustainability goals across different contexts.
10. Cross-sectoral Governance Innovations: This includes research on governance mechanisms that facilitate collaboration across public, private, and civil sectors to address complex sustainability challenges.
11. Knowledge Governance for Sustainability: This includes investigations of how knowledge is produced, shared, and used in sustainability governance processes, including the integration of diverse knowledge systems.
12. Transformative Capacity Building: This includes studies on developing the individual and collective capacities needed for effective sustainability governance and leadership.
    I look forward to receiving your contributions. 

Prof. Dr. Jonathan H. Westover
Guest Editor

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.

• sustainability governance
• transformative change
• institutional innovation
• multi-level governance
• policy integration
• stakeholder engagement
• systems thinking
• transition management
• adaptive governance
• socio-ecological resilience