3.4.10 | Journal Editor News

SSPP editor Maurie Cohen is the co-editor (with Arnold Tukker, Klaus Hubacek, & Oksana Mont) of a special issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology devoted to sustainable consumption and production. The issue includes editorials from the co-editors, Mohan Munasinghe (Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of Manchester), Randall Krantz (World Business Council for Sustainable Development), and Doreen Fedrigo & John Hontelez (European Environment Bureau) in addition to a collection of analytic articles and a series of topical book reviews. The table of contents is accessible at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118902538/home.

See February 23 post of The (NJIT) Vector for comments by Dr. Cohen regarding a recent seminar presentation on, "Is it Futile to Pursue Economic Growth?" presented at the NJIT-Sigma Xi Research Café on March 4, 2010.

2.18.10 | Book Review Perspectives

Book Review Perspectives (BRP) is an innovative study of topical and notable book titles. Each BRP includes remarks from multiple reviewers and often a rejoinder by the book author. This format offers readers a range of personal viewpoints by a diverse grouping of reviewers which underscores the cross-disciplinary nature of this section and the journal as a whole.

Read our most recent Book Review Perspectives in our Spring 2010 Issue in Progress on Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The Remaking of American Environmentalism by Michael Egan

Reviewers include Jeff Howard (University of Texas at Arlington, USA) and Jody A. Roberts (Chemical Heritage Foundation, USA) along with a rejoinder from the author: Michael Egan (McMaster University, Canada)

1.30.10 | e-Letter Box = Community Discussion

The SSPP e-Letter Box was created as a moderated forum for responses to our editorials, articles, and reviews. One of our goals is to take advantage of our electronic format and generate discussion and debate among our SSPP community.

Read our most recent e-Letter from Elisabeth Graffy, an economist with the Center for Science Policy, USGS. Dr. Graffy’s post addresses the Book Review Perspectives on Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Responsibility by Ted Nordhaus & Michael Shellenberger.  

1.25.10 | Issue Complete: Volume 5 Issue 2

Articles and essays are posted in the Issue in Progress as soon as they are accepted and processed. Once the issue is complete, pagination and citation information is added and the edition is placed in the Current Issue section.

12.16.09 | Call for Papers - SSPP Symposium
Transportation and Development in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area

The journal Sustainability: Science, Practice & Policy is planning to publish a symposium on the evolution of transportation and development in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The region is notable for its contradictions and these features make it a valuable case study. On one hand, Washington’s suburbs developed by sprawling outward and today suffer from some of the most intractable traffic problems in the country. On the other hand, the region has one of the most comprehensive public transportation systems in the country and has been a pioneer in implementing concepts of Smart Growth.

Through examinations of transportation planning and policy practice across the metropolitan area, the proposed journal issue will explore questions vital to the challenges of environmental sustainability. Journey length and mode of travel affect air quality and greenhouse emissions, while sprawl fragments habitat and increases nonpoint pollution. In the Washington area, the failure to control suburban growth has contributed to increasing automobile congestion and to degraded water quality in Chesapeake Bay.

The symposium will comprise contributions by planners, officials, and activists working to address the transportation and development challenges of the region. Issues to be considered include:

• Why should we care about transportation and development patterns in and around Washington?
• How well have Smart Growth and wedges and corridors, pioneered in Maryland and Virginia, achieved their objectives?
• With one of the most comprehensive public transportation systems in the nation, why does the Washington area still suffer from some of the worst traffic conditions in the country?
• While the region has launched some notable showcase projects, how widely and effectively has it actually implemented Smart Growth principles?
• How effective are car-sharing programs (e.g., Zip Car), in the Washington area? How might these initiatives be extended in the future?
• What contributes to the uneveness in regional job growth and economic balance across the region? How might this be alleviated in the future?
• How effective are ongoing efforts to develop more integrated modes of regional planning among the various political jurisdictions across the Washington area?
• How important is population growth as a driver of suburban sprawl and environmental degradation? What might be the net effect of slow growth policies?
• What role is technology likely to play in transportation/growth issues in the Washington area?
• What lessons might the Washington area derive from the experiences of other “capital cities” like Paris, Copenhagen, and London?

Potential contributors are invited to submit a 400-500 word abstract by February 1, 2010. Abstracts should be sent to the editorial office of Sustainability: Science, Practice & Policy at ejournal@csa.com. Preliminary expressions of interest and other questions should be directed to Ethan Goffman at ethan.goffman@proquest.com

Provisional Timeline:
Submission of Abstracts: February 1, 2010
Response to Authors: February 15, 2010
Submission of Invited Manuscripts: May 1, 2010
Submission of Revised Manuscripts: August 1, 2010
Publication of Symposium: Fall 2010

Since publication of the Brundtland Report in 1987, the notion of sustainable development has come to guide the pursuit of both public and private environmental reforms and to facilitate communication among previously antagonistic actors. While the concept has never acquired a universal definition, it is arguably its inherent vagueness and interpretative flexibility that contributes to much of its broad public appeal. It is moreover customary practice to characterize sustainable development in terms of a familiar typology comprising three pillars: environmental, economic, and social (or socio-cultural). The relationships among these dimensions are generally assumed to be compatible and mutually supportive. This widespread formulation also presupposes that human needs cannot be satisfied by focusing only on strategies that support or uplift the environmental and economic pillars. Social requirements are equally legitimate and deserve simultaneous consideration.However, when policy makers endorse sustainable development, the social dimension tends to garner less attention or is dismissed altogether. Indeed, in some quarters the terms “environmental sustainability” and “economic sustainability” have come to supplant more integrated framings.

Despite these circumstances, recent years have given rise to notable efforts to address the often neglected social aspects of sustainability and the aim of this special issue is to highlight these initiatives. This Call for Papers seeks to identify contributions that document such projects and to assemble them in a special journal issue that advances our understanding of the conditions, challenges, and opportunities that become manifest when the social dimension of sustainability receives assertive and unambiguous emphasis. The social pillar of sustainable development includes both procedural aspects such as the role of democratic representation, participation, and deliberation and substantive aspects that center on improving standards, policies, and planning instruments. These latter aspects may relate to the spatial distribution of environmental goods (and bads), inter- and intragenerational justice, quality of life, cultural diversity, working conditions, and gender issues. More generally, this special issue seeks to attract contributions that shed light on the practice of social sustainability from the following perspectives:

• Tradeoffs or synergies among the different dimensions of sustainability
• Definitions, framings, and interpretations of (social) sustainability principles and criteria in planning, policy making, and rule setting
• Institutional and organizational challenges of operationalizing social sustainability
• Mobilization, empowerment, or counteraction involving groups that represent “social categories”
• Existing transnational and local power relations
• Other treatments of structural factors that set conditions for facilitating sustainability projects

Potential contributors are invited to submit a 500-word abstract by March 1, 2010. Abstracts should be sent to the editorial office of Sustainability: Science, Practice & Policy at ejournal@csa.com. Preliminary expressions of interest and other questions should be directed to Magnus Boström at magnus.bostrom@sh.se.

Provisional Timeline:
Submission of Abstracts: March 1, 2010
Response to Authors: March 15, 2010
Submission of Invited Manuscripts: September 1, 2010
Culmination of Initial Peer-Review Process: November 15, 2010
Submission of Revised Manuscripts: January 15, 2011
Publication of Symposium: Spring 2011