Since the 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 Special Issue: Spring 2011

Sustainability: Science, Practice & Policy is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal that provides a platform for the dissemination of new practices and for dialogue emerging out of the field of sustainability. The e-Journal fills a gap in the literature by establishing a forum for cross-disciplinary discussion of empirical science, as well as practice and policy developments related to sustainability. Sustainability facilitates communication among scientists, practitioners, and policy makers who are investigating and shaping nature-society interactions and working towards sustainable solutions. Further information is available at http://ejournal.nbii.org.