Creating Benefits through Life Cycle Thinking: Practices and Challenges from EcoBalance

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit articles for special issue on “Creating Benefits through Life Cycle Thinking: Practices and Challenges from EcoBalance”, by September 30, 2015.

The focus of this special issue covers discussions on methodologies and practices for sustainability based on life cycle thinking, which include but are not limited to:

• Industrial symbiosis, circular society, inter-sectoral design
• Sustainable resource and business management
• Challenges for sustainable industry
• Food security and sustainable agriculture
• Socio-economic approaches to sustainability
• Implementation of Eco-innovation

We would like to invite a wide range of studies to share their quests for creating benefits from life cycle thinking. In recognition of the fact that the benefits sought are diverse, contributions from various sectors are welcome to highlight advantages beyond mere financial considerations in the increasingly globalized supply chain under quickly changing circumstances.

This issue welcomes all the important studies in the abovementioned context from any researchers. Special encouragement goes to the papers that extend the presentations from the 11th International Conference on EcoBalance, the milestone conference held on the 20th year after its birth on 1994. The EcoBalance conference has been offering precious opportunities for the worldwide researchers that examined how life cycle thinking can actually make practical steps forward towards sustainability. Its uniqueness always lied on the presence of various industrial sectors and participants from the non-OECD countries especially from the Asia. Recognizing that the current problems met in developed regions are the ones that will be faced by the developing regions, the special issue hopes to respond to the practices and needs both in developed and developing regions worldwide.

Yasuhiro Fukushima
Yasushi Kondo
Shinsuke Murakami
Masaharu Motoshita
Matthias Finkbeiner
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.