Journal of Sustainability

Submission Requirements

Authors submitting to JoS must confirm the following at the time of submission:

• Originality: The manuscript is original and has not been published previously, except in the form of a preprint, thesis, abstract, or conference proceeding, where applicable and properly disclosed.
• Exclusive Submission: The manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere, and it will not be submitted to another journal while under review at JoS.
• Author Approval: All listed authors have:
  • Contributed meaningfully to the work,
  • Reviewed and approved the submitted version,
  • Agreed to the manuscript’s submission to JoS.
• Institutional Approval: Where applicable, the submission has the necessary approval from all relevant institutions, ethics committees, review boards, community authorities, or governing bodies overseeing the research.
• No Redundant Publication: The content does not substantially overlap with other published or submitted work by the authors. Any related manuscripts must be disclosed and shared during submission.

Misrepresentation of these conditions may result in withdrawal of the manuscript or retraction after publication.

Publication Fees (APCs)

The Journal of Sustainability (JoS) publishes all content open access and applies Article Processing Charges (APCs) to support editorial and publishing operations. JoS strives to remain financially accessible by maintaining APCs significantly below prevailing rates in comparable sustainability journals.

Current APCs, applied upon acceptance:

• Research article: 580 EUR
• Review article: 580 EUR
• Perspective: 480 EUR

Discounts may be granted to students, independent scholars, authors from the Global South, and/or authors from communities historically marginalised in academic publishing. Discount requests must be submitted before or at the time of submission and will be assessed case-by-case.

All accepted articles are published open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

For waiver requests, questions regarding publication charges, or fee-related concerns, authors are invited to contact the JoS editorial team at:
info@journalofsustainability.net

Primary Publishing

Manuscripts submitted to JoS must not be under consideration elsewhere or previously published. Simultaneous submission or redundant publication is not allowed.

Originality and Transparency of Sources

Submitted manuscripts must present original research, analysis, or scholarly argumentation. Authors are responsible for ensuring the originality of their work and must transparently cite the contributions of others. Use of copyrighted or licensed material without permission is prohibited and must be disclosed. Plagiarism of any form constitutes academic malpractice.

JoS encourages compliance with the Social Research Association’s Ethical Guidelines, where relevant to research involving people, organisations, communities, or sensitive social data.

Citation Practices and Credit for Original Work

JoS is committed to maintaining scholarly integrity through accurate attribution. Authors are expected to cite primary sources where original findings, methods, or concepts were first reported. Review articles may be cited for background or synthesis, but they should not replace references to original work. Proper citation ensures that credit is given to those who first developed the ideas or findings being discussed.

Citation Manipulation

JoS strictly prohibits any form of citation manipulation. This policy applies to all actors involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, and reviewers. All parties must avoid practices intended to unethically inflate citation metrics.

Specifically, citation manipulation includes but is not limited to:

• Coercing or suggesting citations that are not directly relevant to the manuscript.
• Adding excessive self-citations without clear scholarly justification.
• Adding citations to JoS without appropriate academic reason.

Suspected cases will be thoroughly investigated. Proven manipulation may lead to rejection, retraction, or a ban on future submissions or collaborations. All actions will be taken in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines.

Data Sharing, Reproducibility and Retention

JoS promotes transparency and reproducibility. Authors are strongly encouraged to make their data, code, methods, and supporting materials openly accessible where this is legally, ethically, and practically possible. Authors must be prepared to provide access to their data during or after publication if requested by the editorial team.

Authors should:

• Deposit datasets, code, protocols, or supplementary materials in trusted repositories that provide a persistent identifier, such as a DOI.
• For all manuscripts submitted after 30 June 2025 or published after 31 December 2025: Include a Data Availability Statement within the manuscript, specifying:
  • Whether and how the supporting data can be accessed,
  • Repository name and link, if applicable,
  • Any restrictions or conditions for access,
  • A justification if data cannot be shared, for example for ethical, legal, confidentiality, privacy, security, Indigenous data governance, or proprietary reasons.

Examples:

• Data is available at [repository] via [DOI or link].
• Data supporting the findings must be made available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author, barring exceptions for legal, ethical, confidentiality, privacy, security, Indigenous data governance, proprietary, or other reasonable grounds.

JoS encourages long-term preservation of research data to support transparency, reproducibility, and academic integrity. Authors must retain all relevant data and research materials used in their study for a minimum of five years after publication. This applies to both published and unpublished data related to the research findings, including raw data, processed data, analysis scripts, interview materials, survey instruments, coding files, field notes, and supporting documentation, where applicable. If data retention is not possible due to legal, ethical, privacy, confidentiality, institutional, Indigenous data governance, or proprietary constraints, authors must formally request an exception from the handling editor at the time of submission. Any granted exception must be acknowledged in the manuscript.

Funding Disclosure

Authors must clearly disclose any sources of financial support received for the conduct of their research and/or the preparation of their manuscript.

The funding statement must include:

• The name of the funding body or sponsor.
• Any relevant grant numbers or project titles.
• A description of the role of the funder, if applicable, in:
  • Study design,
  • Data collection or analysis,
  • Manuscript preparation,
  • Decision to submit for publication.

If the research received no external funding, authors should explicitly state this.

Reporting Standards

JoS encourages authors to present unique and original research. Submitted manuscripts are evaluated based on their methodological rigour, relevance to sustainability, transparency, and scholarly contribution. Authors should ensure accurate data representation, proper referencing, attention to detail, and robust research design. Unsubstantiated claims, selective reporting, misleading interpretation, or fallacious argumentation are considered unethical. While Research Papers and Reviews must sustain objectivity, Perspectives may reflect the author’s subjective viewpoint, provided that arguments are clearly supported and transparently framed.

Preprint Policy

JoS encourages authors to share their work as preprints prior to or during submission.

Authors may:

• Post their manuscript on reputable preprint servers, such as arXiv, SSRN, or OSF.
• Reference the preprint in their submission cover letter.
• Include a link to the preprint in the published version if accepted.

Preprints are not considered prior publication, but authors must ensure that:

• The preprint version is transparently cited if relevant.
• There is no substantial difference in authorship or content unless justified.
• Authors are responsible for updating preprint records to reflect acceptance or publication in JoS.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be granted to individuals who contributed substantially to the conception, design, execution, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the manuscript. Others who contributed less substantially should be listed as co-authors or acknowledged appropriately. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring all contributors approve the final manuscript and agree to its submission. All listed authors must take collective responsibility for the content.

Any authorship disputes should be resolved before submission. Changes to the author list after submission are only allowed under exceptional circumstances and must be approved by the editor.

Author Contributions (CRediT Taxonomy)

JoS requires authors to specify the individual contributions of each co-author using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) framework.

Authors should indicate who was responsible for roles such as:

• Conceptualization
• Data curation
• Formal analysis
• Funding acquisition
• Investigation
• Methodology
• Project administration
• Resources
• Software
• Supervision
• Validation
• Visualisation
• Writing – original draft
• Writing – review & editing

Each author may be credited with multiple roles, and all listed contributors must approve the author contributions statement. This statement should appear in the manuscript before the references or in a designated section during submission.

Changes to Authorship

JoS expects that all authors listed on a manuscript have agreed upon the author list and order at the time of submission. As such, changes to authorship are discouraged after submission and are only permitted under exceptional circumstances.

Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors must meet the following conditions:

• The corresponding author must submit the request in writing, explaining the reason for the change.
• The request must include written confirmation from all listed authors, including any being added or removed, stating that they agree with the change.
• If the manuscript has already been accepted, JoS may pause publication while authorship issues are resolved.

The editorial team will evaluate each request on a case-by-case basis. Unapproved or undeclared changes to authorship may lead to manuscript rejection or retraction after publication.

Acknowledgements

Authors should acknowledge any individuals or organisations that contributed to the research but do not meet the criteria for authorship.

This may include:

• Assistance with research design, data collection, or analysis.
• Help with language editing, proofreading, translation, or technical support.
• Institutional, community, administrative, fieldwork, or logistical support that was essential to completing the work.

Acknowledgements should be included in a dedicated section before the references. Authors must ensure that all individuals named have given their explicit permission to be acknowledged.

Financial support should be disclosed in the Funding Disclosure section, not in the acknowledgements.

Declaration of Generative AI Use in Writing

Authors must clearly disclose any use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools during manuscript preparation. This includes tools used for drafting, editing, summarising, translating text, coding assistance, or literature organisation.

Key guidelines:

• AI tools must not be listed as authors. Authorship implies responsibility, which cannot be attributed to non-human tools.
• AI may be used to assist with language improvement, clarity, technical formatting, coding, or administrative preparation, but must not replace original scholarly input.
• Authors are fully accountable for the integrity, accuracy, originality, and validity of any AI-assisted content.

If generative AI was used during manuscript preparation, authors must clearly state this in the manuscript. The declaration should specify which tool was used, how it was used, and why it was used. This information should be included in a dedicated section near the end of the manuscript, for example before the references.

Use of generative AI for content creation without disclosure will be treated as academic malpractice, equivalent to plagiarism. The journal may employ plagiarism and AI detection software, but does not disclose which tool is used. Authors sanctioned due to plagiarism or undisclosed use of AI may appeal their case by contacting appeals@journalofsustainability.net in accordance with JoS’s appeals procedures.

Use of AI in Figures, Images, and Visuals

JoS does not permit the undisclosed use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create, modify, or enhance figures, images, or other visual content in submitted manuscripts.

Permitted use:

• Standard editing, such as brightness, contrast, colour balance, cropping, or resolution improvement, is acceptable as long as it does not obscure, misrepresent, or remove original information.
• AI-generated images are only permitted if they are part of the research methodology itself, for example in AI-related studies, and this must be transparently described in the Methods section.
• AI-assisted visualisation may be permitted where the underlying data, method, and software use are fully disclosed and the output is not misleading.

Prohibited use:

• Use of AI to generate visual abstracts, illustrations, or graphs without disclosure and editorial approval.
• Use of AI tools such as DALL·E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or similar tools without disclosure.
• Use of AI tools to alter, fabricate, enhance, remove, or obscure evidence in research images or figures.

All visual content must be the authors’ original work, properly credited, or used with permission from third parties. Undisclosed use of AI in visuals may result in rejection or retraction.

Image Integrity

All visual content must accurately reflect the original data and must not be manipulated in a way that could mislead readers.

Authors must ensure that:

• No feature is added, enhanced, obscured, moved, or removed from an image in a way that changes the meaning of the data or evidence.
• Adjustments, such as brightness, contrast, or colour balance, are permissible only if they apply to the entire image and do not distort or misrepresent the original data.
• Any image splicing, composition, or combination of multiple images must be clearly indicated and explained in the figure legend.

Image manipulation that violates these principles may be treated as academic misconduct. JoS reserves the right to request original, unprocessed image data during peer review or post-publication.

Declaration of Competing Interests

All authors must disclose any financial, institutional, professional, political, organisational, or personal relationships that could be perceived to influence the content of the submitted work.

Examples include:

• Employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or patent applications.
• Grants, honoraria, paid expert testimony, advisory roles, or commissioned research.
• Institutional affiliations, collaborations, advocacy roles, policy involvement, or organisational relationships relevant to the research.

This declaration is required from every author, even if no competing interests exist. Authors with nothing to declare must state that they have no competing interests to declare.

Should there be any editorial conflict of interest, such as submissions involving editors, colleagues, funders, partners, or institutions with a close association to the journal, this must be disclosed as early as possible, ideally prior to submission. Such manuscripts will be handled independently and subject to the journal’s standard editorial and peer review procedures without exception.

Failure to disclose relevant conflicts may result in rejection, correction, or retraction.

Confidentiality

Authors must not disclose any confidential information obtained during the research or publishing process without explicit permission from the original source. This includes confidential organisational data, interview material, non-public policy documents, commercially sensitive information, personal data, community-sensitive information, or restricted environmental or geospatial data.

Inclusive Language

JoS is committed to respectful and equitable scholarship. JoS expects authors to use language that is inclusive, free from bias, and considerate of all individuals regardless of background.

Authors should:

• Avoid language that implies superiority based on gender, race, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socioeconomic status, migration status, Indigenous identity, or geographic location.
• Use gender-neutral terms where possible, for example “they” instead of “he/she”, or plural forms such as “researchers” instead of “the researcher”.
• Refer to personal or community attributes only when relevant to the research.
• Avoid stereotypes, slang, stigmatising terminology, or culturally dominant assumptions.

Manuscripts that do not meet these standards may be returned for revision prior to peer review.

Sex, Gender, Diversity and Context-Sensitive Analysis

Where research involves human participants, organisations, communities, consumers, workers, stakeholders, or populations affected by sustainability issues, authors are encouraged to consider whether sex, gender, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic position, disability, geography, vulnerability, or other relevant social factors are important to the study design, analysis, interpretation, or reporting.

Authors should, where relevant:

• Clearly define how sex, gender, diversity, or stakeholder characteristics were considered in the research process.
• Report relevant differences found in the results or explain why such analysis was not applicable.
• Acknowledge limitations related to representativeness, generalisability, equity, or affected stakeholder groups.

JoS encourages the use of established guidelines such as the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines where applicable to the research design and subject matter.

Scope of JoS Research Ethics Requirements

The Journal of Sustainability publishes applied scholarly work on sustainability, including research relevant to environmental systems, social systems, business, management, policy, governance, innovation, technology, communities, education, sustainable development, and the Sustainable Development Goals.

JoS is not a clinical medicine, biomedical, veterinary medicine, or organ transplantation journal. The journal’s ethics requirements therefore primarily concern sustainability-related research involving people, organisations, communities, fieldwork, environmental systems, public or non-public data, sensitive information, and affected stakeholders.

JoS does not normally consider original clinical trials, biomedical case reports, organ or tissue transplantation research, or invasive animal experiments. If a manuscript contains any such element because it is directly relevant to a sustainability question, the authors must clearly justify its relevance to the journal’s aims and scope and provide evidence of compliance with all applicable ethical, legal, institutional, and professional requirements. The editorial team may reject such submissions without review if their primary contribution falls outside the journal’s sustainability scope.

Research Ethics for Human Participants, Communities, Fieldwork and Sensitive Data

For most JoS submissions, research ethics requirements relate to sustainability-focused social science, policy, management, environmental, organisational, technological, legal, economic, educational, or community-based research. This may include interviews, surveys, focus groups, workshops, stakeholder engagement, fieldwork, case studies, observations, participatory research, environmental sampling, policy analysis, organisational research, or the use of personal, organisational, community-sensitive, commercially sensitive, geospatial, environmental, or non-public data.

Where applicable, manuscripts must include a formal Ethics Statement confirming:

• The name of the ethics committee, institutional review board, or equivalent body that approved the study, including approval number and date where available.
• If formal ethics approval was not required, the reason why and the applicable institutional, disciplinary, or legal basis for exemption.
• How informed consent was obtained, where relevant.
• How privacy, confidentiality, anonymity, and data protection were safeguarded.
• Whether vulnerable groups, Indigenous peoples, local communities, employees, consumers, public officials, affected stakeholders, or other identifiable groups were involved, and how their rights and interests were protected.
• Whether fieldwork, environmental sampling, protected-area research, or research involving communities, land, species, ecosystems, or culturally sensitive locations required permits, approvals, or local permissions.
• How any risks to participants, researchers, communities, animals, ecosystems, organisations, or other affected parties were assessed and mitigated.

Examples of acceptable ethics statements include:

• This study was approved by [name of committee/institution] on [date], approval number [number]. All participants provided informed consent.
• Formal ethics approval was not required under [institutional/national/disciplinary rule], because the study used publicly available, anonymised, or non-sensitive data. The authors nevertheless followed appropriate ethical standards for data handling and reporting.
• The study involved interviews with organisational stakeholders. Participants received information about the study, gave informed consent, and were anonymised in the reporting of results.

Authors must ensure that research involving people, organisations, communities, or sensitive data is conducted in accordance with applicable institutional rules, national laws, data protection requirements, and recognised ethical standards. JoS reserves the right to request further documentation to verify ethical compliance and may reject or retract manuscripts that fail to meet these standards.

Environmental, Fieldwork, Community and Ecosystem Research Ethics

Research involving fieldwork, environmental sampling, land use, protected areas, biodiversity, natural resources, local communities, Indigenous peoples, or culturally significant sites must be conducted responsibly and in accordance with applicable laws, permits, institutional standards, and community expectations.

Authors should disclose, where applicable:

• Relevant fieldwork permits, environmental permits, access permissions, or institutional approvals.
• Permissions or engagement processes involving local communities, Indigenous peoples, land managers, public authorities, or other affected stakeholders.
• Measures taken to minimise harm to people, communities, animals, ecosystems, habitats, protected areas, or culturally significant sites.
• Any restrictions on sharing sensitive environmental, cultural, geospatial, or community-related data.

Research must not misappropriate community knowledge, Indigenous knowledge, confidential organisational data, or restricted environmental information. Where such knowledge or data is used, authors must explain how consent, permission, attribution, confidentiality, and benefit-sharing considerations were addressed.

Animal-Related Sustainability Research

JoS does not normally publish invasive animal experiments or veterinary medicine research. Animal-related manuscripts may be considered only where the primary contribution concerns sustainability, for example biodiversity, conservation, agriculture, food systems, animal welfare in sustainable production, ecosystem management, environmental risk, or human-animal relations.

Where a manuscript includes animal-related research, authors must confirm that the study complied with applicable legal, institutional, and ethical requirements. If animals were observed, handled, sampled, monitored, or otherwise affected by the research, authors must describe:

• The purpose and sustainability relevance of the animal-related component.
• Any ethics approval, licence, permit, or institutional oversight obtained.
• Measures taken to minimise harm, disturbance, stress, or ecological impact.
• Compliance with relevant national, institutional, and disciplinary standards.

Manuscripts lacking proper ethical documentation, where required, will not be accepted.

Health-Related Sustainability Research

Health-related submissions may be considered where the primary contribution concerns sustainability, public policy, environmental health, sustainable healthcare systems, food systems, occupational or community impacts, social sustainability, climate-health interactions, or other sustainability-relevant questions.

JoS is not a clinical medicine, biomedical, veterinary medicine, or organ transplantation journal. The journal does not normally publish clinical trials, biomedical case reports, organ or tissue transplantation research, or clinical medicine studies. If a manuscript includes clinical, biomedical, patient-related, or health-sensitive data because it is directly relevant to a sustainability question, authors must provide:

• A clear explanation of how the manuscript falls within the journal’s sustainability scope.
• Appropriate ethics approval or a clear explanation of why approval was not required.
• Confirmation that informed consent was obtained where required.
• Confirmation that identifiable patient or participant information has been anonymised or that explicit consent for publication was obtained.
• Trial registration details where trial registration is legally, institutionally, or professionally required.

JoS will not accept manuscripts relying on unethically obtained biological, clinical, or health-sensitive data. JoS reserves the right to reject submissions without review if their primary focus is clinical, biomedical, or otherwise outside the journal’s sustainability scope.

Hazards and Safety

Authors must clearly disclose any potential hazards associated with the materials, equipment, data, locations, or procedures used in their research. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Use of toxic chemicals, pollutants, pathogens, radioactive materials, or hazardous waste.
• High-risk technical, industrial, laboratory, fieldwork, or environmental procedures.
• Environmental, biological, occupational, community, cybersecurity, data security, or geospatial safety concerns.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all work was conducted in compliance with relevant health, safety, environmental, data protection, and institutional regulations and that appropriate precautions were taken. Where applicable, the manuscript should include a description of the risks and how they were mitigated.

Jurisdictional Claims and Maps

JoS maintains a neutral stance on all territorial, political, or jurisdictional claims made by authors in their manuscripts.

Authors must ensure that:

• Maps and affiliations reflect only the area studied or institution involved, without implying endorsement of any territorial claim.
• Institutional names are written in full or use standardised abbreviations that can be independently verified.

When including maps:

• Authors should limit illustrations to the study area only.
• Maps must not display broader regions beyond what is relevant to the research.
• A disclaimer should be included where appropriate:
  “Map boundaries are for illustrative purposes only and do not imply endorsement of any territorial claim.”

Editors may request revisions to maps or affiliations that may appear politically sensitive or ambiguous.