Publishing associations are taking a wide variety of actions in support of the SDGs including establishing internal policies; forming leadership groups for organizational sustainability; developing written manifestos, principles, best practices, initiatives, tools and repositories for members to use; organizing conferences and sessions; introducing awards to recognize and encourage important contributions and model initiatives; preparing and presenting information relevant to the SDGs to a wide variety of audiences; and teaching skills for better connecting with practitioners, policymakers and the public. The SDG Publishers Compact Fellows provide action lists and tip sheets outlining ways in which authors, editors, researchers, students, publishers, librarians and others can support the 10 commitments and implement the SDGs. (Non-academic authors can also take steps, like specifying the use of sustainably sourced paper as part of their contracts.) Publishers can explicitly commit to the SDGs in vision and purpose statements and connect journals and other publications specifically to SDGs. Editors and peer review processes at institutions can support research that is being translated into practice. Research societies can create awards to recognize significant work relating to the SDGs. Librarians and publishers can implement methodologies to increase the findability of SDG-related content and to track and assess the impact of publishing on the SDGs. In agreement with the Compact's Action Point 10, individual publishers such as Emerald Publishing, IOS Press, Oxford University Press, Springer Nature, and Wiley have publicly disclosed sustainability reports of their actions. Impacts of the SDGs can be categorized as discursive, normative (legislative/regulatory) and institutional. As early as 2018,
Emerald Publishing issued a Real Impact Manifesto, challenging publishers and the research community to reconsider their operations in terms of impact and sustainability. In 2021, the
European Association of Science Editors (EASE) published an Environmental Manifesto outlining a variety of environmentally responsible actions for publishers and others. Digital publication, the role of editors, and improvements in journal distribution are particularly relevant to publishers, but the adoption of an environment policy and improvements in office, employee, food, and building management are broadly applicable to other types of organizations. Also in 2021, the
International Publishers Association (IPA) created the IPA SDG Dashboard, a repository for information about how publishers are addressing the SDGs. The
International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM) has officially endorsed the SDG Fellows action suggestions and established its own SDGs Academic Publishers Forum in 2022 to provide information and support. Also recognized were
Taylor & Francis' Sustainable Development Goals Online (SDG Online), an online library curated around the alignment of publishing with the SDGs and
Bristol University Press' "brilliant publishing" imprint, Policy Press, formed in 1995 to address sustainability and development issues.
Normative effects In terms of legislative and regulatory frameworks and policies, the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals form the central normative framework of worldwide sustainable development. The introduction of impact ratings specific to the SDGs has also been suggested. The
Times Higher Education Impact Rankings assess universities in terms of their performance on the SDGs. In 2022, 1,524 institutions participated, from 110 countries and regions. In 2023, universities from Australian and Canada dominated the top 10 overall rankings, along with Great Britain in the top 100. This ranking and its methodology have raised concerns.
Cabells and
Saint Joseph's University's
Haub School of Business have launched the SDG Impact Intensity system for academic journal rating. The underlying SDG-Intense Evaluation framework (SDGIE) can be applied to a wide range of textual data sets and is suggested as a benchmark structure for standardizing AI approaches to the SDGs. Of the 100 journals assessed, the 6 that received the highest possible "Five Wheel" impact rating were
Smart and Sustainable Built Environment and
Gender in Management (Emerald Publishing);
Environment, Development and Sustainability (Springer Nature);
Globalization and Health (BioMed Central);
International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology (Taylor & Francis) and
Natural Resources Forum (Wiley-Blackwell Publishing).
Institutional effects Institutional effects can include the creation of new departments, committees, and programmes to address the achievement of the SDGs, as well the review and realignment of existing institutional structures to better support the SDGs. As of 2022, BCP's
Design Guide for the publishing industry includes data on emissions factors for key publishing-related materials and processes. Accreditation systems related to printing supply chains are also used to check suppliers.
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Chain of Custody certification requires certified companies to monitor their supply chains and trace products to their forest of origin. The
Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) Chain of Custody certifies timber and paper products as deriving from responsibly managed forests, and attempts to reconcile certification schemes from international forests. In 2022,
Börsenverein (German Publishers and Booksellers Association) formed a Sustainability Working Group with three Task Forces. Task Force 1 focuses on production and logistics, including the development of standards for sustainable production and packaging. Task Force 2 is focused on sustainability reporting, to better understand current reporting obligations and uniform standards such as the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), and to guide reporting companies. Task Force 3 focuses on sustainable operations for all sizes of publishing companies, from micro-enterprises and
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to large corporations. The Working Group emphasizes the importance of being both quick (not waiting until everything is known) and nimble (flexible and agile in adjusting as more is learned). Some research has looked at the integration of the SDGs into the
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and factors affecting the adoption of the SDGs by organizations.
Carbon-neutral In the case of publishing, many of the steps involved in publishing a journal or a book involve carbon or greenhouse gas emissions and are highly relevant to
SDG 13 (Climate action). In the United Kingdom, the Compact signatory
The Publishers Association (PA) has launched its own "Publishing Declares" initiative. PA has also worked with RISE (
Research Institutes of Sweden) and Solstice Associates to commission a carbon calculator specific to UK book and journal publishers, to enable them to monitor their carbon outputs. Discussions of changes in institutional practice at the ALPSP University Press Redux conference in 2022 included how to create a carbon neutral supply chain, and environmental implications of business-related travel. IOS Publishers encourages its journals to reduce the use of print materials at conferences and trade shows. A researcher from
Institution of Engineering and Technology has reported that in his department, commuting had a higher impact on carbon emissions than server usage and business flying combined. In another example of a change in institutional practice in support of sustainability, Taylor & Francis have chosen to decrease environmental impact by replacing plastic with responsibly sourced paper packaging for mailing of journals. The decision was made after research into the options and a trial with the journal
Brontë Studies.
Oxford University Press has found that 75% of its carbon footprint is associated with paper, print and shipping. , Oxford University Press reported a 59% reduction in its operational carbon footprint. It reported an increase in its use of sustainably sourced paper (from 75% to 91%). Waste was reduced by 70%. with the company's two largest offices (about 40% of its workforce) achieving
zero waste. In other SDG-related initiatives, OUP has increased the representation of women in leadership roles to 45%, carried out a climate risk assessment, and is working with a South African government initiative to increase literacy through its Road to Literacy campaign.
Springer Nature has reported that its offices, fleet and flights became carbon neutral as of 2020. The achievement was a result of decreasing carbon emissions, using green electricity and buying socially responsible carbon offsets.
Wiley also reported that it became carbon neutral as of 2020. Wiley uses renewable energy sources, purchasing energy through green tariffs, documented by
Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs). Wiley is reducing the environmental impact of its print products and supporting reforestation through a Go Green fund. In a partnership with
Trees for the Future, a tree is planted in Sub-Saharan Africa for each print copy Wiley stops printing. In 2021, Wiley's print volume was reduced by 1.1 million copies or 85 million pages of paper. In addition, Wiley uses paper from sustainable sources and minimizes transportation by locating print production close to delivery areas. Wiley is also recycling and reducing waste.
Open access Another step toward SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) and SDG 13 (climate action) is to move away from print publication to electronic publishing. Open access publishing of scientific content has been identified as an important step toward progress on SDGs. Many new journals are
born digital and
open access (OA). Under models such as
Diamond open access and
Subscribe to Open Open access is receiving strong support from librarians.
Discounted fees Pay-per-article publishing models raise issues of regional and global equity. Through the Research4Life initiative, low-income and middle-income countries can be given free or low-cost access to peer-reviewed collections online that they would otherwise not be able to afford. In some cases, authors from designated countries may be exempted from paying
author publishing fees that would otherwise be required to publish in a journal. The Research4Life partnership involves the
World Health Organization (WHO),
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
United Nations Environment Programme,
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM),
Cornell University and
Yale University. Research4Life includes five programmes: Hinari (biomedical and health literature), AGORA (food, agriculture, environmental science), OARE (environmental science), ARDI (science and technology), and GOALI (legal information).
Publications Diversity and inclusivity Diversity and inclusion are considered fundamental to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, not only in relation to
SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and
SDG 5 (Gender Equality), but as underlying all forms of social, economic, and political inclusion, including
SDG 4 (Quality Education),
SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and
SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions).
Emerald Publishing has commissioned two global inclusivity reports (2020 and 2022) to assess diversity and inclusion in the academic sector. Responses from academics indicated that nearly 1/3 of academics experienced forms of discrimination and anti-inclusion, with women experiencing such behaviors at much higher rates than men. Men were more likely to say they had not experienced bullying or discrimination and were almost twice as likely to feel that inclusivity did not provide noticeable benefits. Sixty percent of responding academics said their institution had taken steps to promote inclusivity in their work environment. Ninety percent believed that greater inclusion could improve academia by promoting different ways of thinking. Initiatives such as the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4Disc) have developed resources such as the Toolkits for Equity Project and its "Guidelines on Inclusive Language and Images in Scholarly Communication." Studies of both editorial boards Redressing gender disparity is the responsibility of gatekeeper groups at multiple levels. In medicine, these can include medical schools, healthcare organisations, medical societies, and funders as well as medical journals.
IOS Press has reviewed the distribution of its journal editors, and reports that the editorial boards it reviewed are predominantly male. IOS has issued a "Call to action" to improve gender balance. IOS Press has also reviewed the regional balance of its journal editors and is moving to expand its editorial boards to better represent researchers from all parts of the world.
Canadian Science Publishing has recognized the lack of indigenous peoples in peer review and publishing processes, and has taken steps to encourage co-production of knowledge in its journal
Arctic Science. Co-editor-in-chief Lisa Loseto acknowledges that new processes may be needed to support indigenous participation in science.
Curation Connecting research and practice is key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. One approach is for publishers to work to connect their existing content more clearly to the SDGs. Organizations such as STM are focusing on the curation and sharing of SDG-related content and providing tools to help publishers better reach audiences to increase the impact of scientific content. and has been noted for its 17 SDG content hubs, which relate those articles to specific SDGs. Scientific database
Dimensions.ai enables filters for research into the SDGs, Elsevier has generated 5 sets of SDG mappings.
Creation In addition, scholarly publishers are bringing together academics and policymakers to create new content. Emerald Publishing has identified "impact articles" which explicitly discuss the impact of underlying research as a particularly important type of article for publication.
Journals Publishers are introducing new journals to publish research relevant to the SDGs.
PLOS introduced five new open-access journals focusing on SDG-related areas in 2021:
PLOS Climate,
PLOS Water (
SDG 6),
PLOS Sustainability and Transformation,
PLOS Digital Health and
PLOS Global Public Health (
SDG 3). PLOS joined the SDG Publishers Compact in 2023, reaffirming its commitment to "advancing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by actively seeking and promoting scientific content related to the goals, as well as committing to sustainable actions across our business." Oxford University Press is publishing a series of Oxford Open Journals, with titles including
Oxford Open Climate Change,
Oxford Open Energy (
SDG 7),
Oxford Open Immunology,
Oxford Open Infrastructure and Health, and
Oxford Open Digital Health. Cambridge University Press is releasing a set of open access journals known as Cambridge Prisms, Springer Nature has launched thematic journals including
Nature Climate Change,
Nature Energy,
Nature Sustainability, Many of the new journals are transdisciplinary in nature, such as
Advances in Global Health, from the
University of California Press. The journal launched in 2021, is open access and is framed around the SDGs. The journal's senior editor is Fernando Mardones, from the
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. In support of diversity and inclusion, the
Lowitja Institute is working with
Elsevier to launch a new international peer-reviewed online open access journal for First Nations research.
First Nations Health and Wellbeing - The Lowitja Journal is expected to appear in 2023.
Communication skills To drive progress, it is important for scientists and communicators to better prepare and present information relevant to the SDGs to a wide variety of audiences, including policymakers, practitioners, advocacy organizations, journalists, patients and other members of the general public. Signatories of the SDG Publishers Compact promote and teach techniques for better communication when presenting scientific information. Many other sources, including the
American Psychological Association, also discuss skills for writing for a variety of audiences. Two important areas of skills are writing summaries in plain language and clearly highlighting practitioner or policy action points. Medical writers may write several types of specialized summaries: regulatory lay summaries, plain language summaries (PLS), and standalone plain language summaries of publications (PLSPs). Each has its own purpose and audience. The Open Pharma initiative has developed best practice recommendations for writing plain language summaries for publication in peer-reviewed medical journals. Plain language summaries can be useful in both medical and non-medical areas of science. Taylor & Francis outline how to write a "Plain language summary" and a secondary abstract of "Key Policy Highlights" to summarize policy implications for a non-academic audience. Emerald Publishing also recommends the writing of plain language summaries, and of structured abstracts that indicate relevance and application of research. creating podcasts to present research in an accessible format, and scientific blogging are also encouraged. ==See also==