Sustainable Production and Consumption

Life Cycle–Based Sustainability Assessment: This section focuses on quantitative life cycle thinking and analytical methods. It promotes research on environmental, social, and economic impact assessments, including life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle cost (LCC), material flow analysis, sustainability indicators, techno-economic analysis, scenario analysis, prospective and dynamic sustainability assessment, as well as ecosystem services considerations. It underscores the importance of integrating environmental and social costs into decision-making, evaluation or assessment processes across all stages of a product system’s life cycle.

Sustainable Production Systems and Circular Economy: This section emphasizes the transformation of manufacturing and production systems toward circular, resource-efficient, and regenerative practices. Topics include circular economy implementation, clean technology, industrial ecology, sustainable chemistry, supply chain sustainability, and resource management, with a focus on systems-level sustainability solutions.

Sustainable Consumption, Lifestyles, and Social Dimensions: Highlighting the demand side of sustainable systems, this section explores consumer behavior, societal impacts, and lifestyle choices that influence the environmental and social footprint of products and services. Key themes include consumer preferences, ethical consumption, social life cycle assessment (S-LCA), rebound effects, equity considerations, as well as sustainable product and service design from the user perspective.

Policy, Governance, and Sectoral Transitions for Sustainability: Addressing the enabling frameworks and sector-wide transformations, this section covers policy development, institutional quality, economic instruments, corporate responsibility, and sector-specific sustainability transitions in energy, food, bioeconomy, transportation, water, waste, chemicals, retail, tourism, and other domains. It aims to bridge the gap between technological innovation, institutional change and effective governance to foster systemic change.