Dear Colleagues,

The transition to sustainable practices is necessary to ensure global sustainability and economic viability. While some studies have discussed the benefits of transforming production theories and practices so that they could positively contribute to sustainable development, others provided conflicting theories and suggest that there is still a need for practical and theoretical studies that could demonstrate how sustainability and strategic planning supporting it could be formulated and conceptualized, particularly to support developmental activities in developing countries. Otherwise, the concept of sustainability remains difficult to express in concrete and operational terms. Efforts particularly need to be directed toward the development of proactive multi-criteria, multi-stakeholder decision-making tools that are specific to strategic design and the management of pollution according to the basic principle of sustainability. More specifically, cleaner production and pollution prevention strategies need to be targeted that are not common and not easily understood by industry and policy makers in developing economies.

Decades worth of reviews of industrial performance in developed and developing economies suggest that utilizing strategic environmental management approaches such as cleaner production that requires redesigning production processes according to internal and external resource availability and constraints could help gain a competitive advantage while preserving ecological, social, and natural resources. The challenge is how to advance these theoretical and practical strategies to assist with promoting sustainable development in developing countries.

The focus and scope of this Special Issue is to contribute to the literature in the realm of solution formulation and adaptation in the field of sustainable development and provide a platform for the analysis of conditions under which environmental management tools such as cleaner production can be further developed and employed to promote sustainability, particularly in developing countries. More specifically, this Special Issue examines if, and how, sustainable development goals and objectives can be achieved through enhancement of cleaner production principles and scopes and the design of innovative and relevant regulatory instruments and financial tools to support them. Theoretical and applied research that is specific to making sustainable development strategic through value creation and customization is welcomed.

Submissions for this Special Issue can be on, but are not limited to, the following topics about understanding and managing sustainable development as a global phenomenon.

• The history of using cleaner production principles, tools, and techniques in promoting environmental sustainability.
• Streamlining cleaner production with a sustainable development agenda.
• Advancing cleaner production tools, techniques, and policies for linking cleaner production to environmental, social, and economic sustainability.
• Cleaner production principles and practices adopted in developing countries. 
• Evaluating the true impact of cleaner production as a sustainable management strategy on the design of environmental management policies in terms of their impact.
• Understanding interactions between nature and society and their impact on the promotion of sustainable development.
• The origins and roots of global environmental, social, and economic inequality, and the role of climate change phenomena.
• Cleaner production for global citizenship and social democracy.
• Developing financing and policy options to promote the adaption of cleaner production in developing countries.
• Practical environmentalism and sustainability in developed and developing countries.

Dr. Nasrin R. Khalili
Guest Editor

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.

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.

• cleaner production
• sustainable development
• environmental management strategies
• financing sustainability
• regulatory instruments for sustainability
• developing countries