Dear Colleagues,

The spotlight placed on sustainable development is an advantage and a disadvantage.  The advantage is that companies, institutions and decision makers need to work with sustainability and sustainable development. The disadvantage is that the terms can be used as mere labels to be pasted onto all sorts of initiatives, technologies, models and solutions. It could be that the possibility to label anything as sustainable comes from a lack of a common understanding of what constitutes sustainability and how it connects to a overarching framework of sustainable development. Defining materiality—that is, understanding what is important for organizational sustainability—in the entire value chain while considering the main sustainability impacts could be a challenge. The key issue is that without a clear understanding of the main problems that are contributing to the current sustainability performance, any solution, no matter how well intentioned, will not contribute effectively towards sustainable development. This Special Issue seeks papers that will help in building a framework for sustainable development to act as a roadmap towards sustainability.  Articles critical to the assumptions described below are welcome. This work is based on the following assumptions:

• Sustainability is viewed as a state—the level of sustainability, like a level of quality;
• Sustainable development is the process of change that takes us from the current level of sustainability to a state of sustainability where a system can continue to exist without negatively affecting sub-systems it is dependent on and changing at a pace that avoids the destruction of sub-systems (e.g., reducing greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough to avoid cooking the planet);
• Sensemaking of sustainable development is viewed in the stages of: understanding, defining, measuring, communicating, and leading sustainable development (Isaksson and Rosvall, 2020);
• Improvement is defined using a six-step generic process: diagnosing, analyzing, solving, improving, anchoring and studying (Isaksson, 2015);
• These two models could possibly be formed into a matrix that could become a roadmap for sustainable development.

The focus is on carrying out research that contributes to understanding sustainable development and to practically making sustainable development happen. We believe that studies that use multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches are particularly suitable. We further believe that understanding sustainability from the perspective of Science-Based Targets (SBTs), the GRI reporting standards, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Planetary Boundaries and the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) could help. Additionally, exemplifying sustainability and sustainable development within a specific context is of interest. Our research indicates that sustainability has to be understood, defined and measured in concrete contexts and within important sectors such as housing, transport, food systems, energy, tourism, healthcare and education. Even for the measurement of carbon emissions that are essential for all companies, reporting is often partial and does not account for the entire value chain. The editors of this Special Issue of Sustainability urge the contributors to think in terms of measuring sustainability in a manner that makes it concrete, real, and contextual for a system or a sector.

Dr. Raine Isaksson
Dr. Swaminathan Ramanathan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

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• understanding sustainable development
• system
• process
• stakeholder needs focus