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Call for Submissions: “Sustainability Policy”

Theme: Sustainability Policy
Deadline: September 30, 2016

About JSS

The Journal of Sustainability Studies, an interdisciplinary, international, multi-modal, web-based journal hosted by the UNA Center for Sustainability, invites submissions for publication. Submissions are reviewed year-round, with publication in June and December.

Call for Submissions

The upcoming 2016 United States Presidential election will be a critical one for sustainability. The Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Green nominees all hold different positions on sustainability, from dismissing it as a non-issue to making it a central theme that cuts across the platform. In addition, the balance of power in the United States Senate, and the ongoing challenge over Supreme Court Justice appointments, could spell either years of setbacks or present a critical opportunity to take a significant leap forward on issues of sustainability – not just in the U.S., but globally as well, as American policy and position is, for better or worse, accounted for by nations around the globe.

Yet sustainability policy is not limited to the American political arena. Around the globe, corporations, public and private institutions, and community organizations all have economic, environmental, and social policies and agendas that relate in some way to sustainability. Even in the home, families make practical decisions about how to live that are effectively policy positions, whether that means recycling, composting, and using LED lights, or just chucking the trash in one shot; whether that means walking or riding a bicycle, using mass transit, or driving an automobile; whether that means planting a container garden or buying in the marketplace.

Therefore, for the next issue we invite you to explore any of several critical questions: What are viable policies on sustainability (social, environmental, economic, etc.) that can be enacted in a specific chosen context, and what are the anticipated benefits and costs? If a policy has been enacted, what have been the results, both positive and negative? What challenges and opportunities have been presented in setting policy in a given professional, civic, or personal context? How can or have those challenges be addressed? What risks and rewards can or have those opportunities created?

For this issue of the Journal of Sustainability Studies, we invite manuscripts, multimedia documents, art, and creative works that explore ideas and concerns regarding sustainability policy – on any scale and in any context. The journal serves a mixed audience of academics and the general public. Please follow the guidelines on the Theme & Submissions page of our website. Please note that the deadline for submissions is September 30th, 2016, for a December 15th publication date.

What is Sustainability?

Call for Submissions: “What is Sustainability?”

The Journal of Sustainability Studies

Inaugural Issue (June 2016)

“What is Sustainability?”

The Journal of Sustainability Studies, an interdisciplinary, international, multi-modal, web-based journal hosted by the University of North Alabama Center for Sustainability, invites submissions for publication. Submissions are reviewed year-round, with publication in June and December.

Sustainability as an intellectual field and area of practice is broadly recognized as a social, environmental, and economic movement that seeks to maximize efficiency in resource use while working to minimize human impact on the environment. Yet this definition can and arguably should be nuanced based on intellectual discipline and geographic region, and will no doubt change with technological and political advances. It is also profoundly concerned with social justice, and thus is centered philosophically on the morality and ethics of fairness and equability. Sustainability is scale independent and encompasses issues affecting the entire planet (climate change and global environmental destruction) to community-scale issues of poverty and inequality. As such, sustainability can mean different things to different people, depending on their perspectives, and thus many people do not know what it means.

Therefore, for this first issue of our journal, we seek to peer through the lenses of professionals in various disciplines and look into the future to answer questions such as, in my field, what does sustainability mean? What are examples of current unsustainable practices? What are the barriers to living more sustainably? What is the best-case scenario for how to attain sustainability? If we fail to live sustainably, what will happen? What will sustainability look like in my field? In the distant future, how will people be living sustainably?

For the inaugural issue of the Journal of Sustainability Studies, we invite manuscripts, multimedia documents, art, and creative works that define and explain sustainability in your professional or civic context. The journal serves a mixed audience of academics and the general public. Please follow the guidelines on the Theme & Submissions page of our website. Please note that the deadline for submissions is April 1, 2016.