Sustainability-Oriented Innovation for the Challenges of the Contemporary Society

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable development has been acknowledged as the foundation of future societal prosperity (European Commission, 2020; United Nations, 2020; World Economic Forum, 2020). The quest for sustainability has been further fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, which raised awareness about the fragility of the existing economic, health, and education structures. The pressing need to address the critical issues associated with the new global panorama emphasizes the key role of sustainability-driven innovation (Little, 2005). Integrating the sustainability criteria into the creation of new products, processes, and services is not only fundamental for the recovery in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, but has also been revealed as the “mother lode” of corporate business success (Nidomilu et al., 2009).

While many associate the term “sustainability” with environmentally friendly practices, its meaning goes far beyond the ecological implications and includes social and economic welfare (Gobble, 2012). The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound effects on those three facets of the sustainability concept, and innovation is needed not only to minimize the negative impacts, but also to create new value propositions for the businesses and improve individuals’ quality of life. In this regard, the goal of this Special Issue is to stimulate research on sustainability-driven innovation in a wide range of academic disciplines and thus bring together different perspectives to solving the challenges of the contemporary world.

This Special Issue welcomes original and relevant conceptual and empirical research that combines sustainability and innovation to address the critical issues faced by businesses, organizations, and society at large. 

Topics of interest to the Special Issue include, but are not limited to, innovation in:

• Sustainable production and management;
• Sustainable entrepreneurship;
• Sustainable marketing;
• Sustainable human resource management;
• Sustainable economy and finance;
• Sustainable mobility and tourism;
• Sustainable education;
• Sustainable use of technology.

Dr. Daniela Buzova
Dr. Silvia Sanz-Blas
Dr. Maria Guijarro-García
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.