Energy and Resource Efficiency

Dear Colleagues,

Enhancing the energy and resource efficiency of society is a major strategy of sustainable development. A closer look, however, reveals several challenges regarding efficiency strategies. Basically, the term resources covers a broad range of natural and other resources, covering, e.g., energy itself, raw materials, and eco-system services where counter-current outcomes between single resources may result. Moreover, when taking a life-cycle perspective, shifts between life-cycle phases may jeopardize savings and diminish net reductions of single resources from measures of efficiency improvement. Beyond this, there has been a long-standing discussion on whether technology-based efficiency gains may be depleted partly by rebound effects, i.e., higher consumption and behavioral effects. While all these issues are known, a review of the literature on the topic of energy and resource efficiency shows a scattered picture, where studies often focus on specific cases rather than on overarching perspectives of how efficiency measures and strategies can be designed and assessed, targeting the greatest possible contribution to sustainable development.

The scope of this Special Issue is on the assessment of energy and resource efficiency measures and strategies as to their expected contribution to targets of sustainable development. Contributions may address methodology of assessment as well as the investigation of implementations and outcomes of selected efficiency measures and strategies in a comprehensive perspective. Exemplary topics may cover approaches of structuring, weighing, and assessment for handling counter-current effects between single resources; suitable indicators of resource efficiency for cross-cutting assessment between measures and sectors; ex ante assessment of emerging technologies; analysis of impacts from digital transformation on resource efficiency; and comparative assessment and investigation of interconnections between sectoral developments and strategies.

Prof. Liselotte Schebek
Ms. Steffi Weyand
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.

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.

• energy efficiency
• resource efficiency
• life-cycle assessment
• sustainability assessment and indicators