Scope and Submission Sections

CSGS welcomes original and methodologically rigorous contributions examining interactions among climate, environmental, technological, economic, and institutional systems. Authors should select the journal section that best reflects the subject of their research.

Journal sections identify the research field, while article categories identify the type of scholarly contribution. These are separate classifications. For example, an Original Research Article may be submitted within Environmental Data and AI, while a Review Article may address Sustainability Governance.

Research focusing on individual locations, institutions, industries, or communities is welcome where it makes a substantive contribution to climate science, sustainability knowledge, environmental governance, or broader systems understanding. International comparative analysis is encouraged where relevant but is not required for every submission.

Article Types and Word Limits

CSGS accepts six principal article categories. The categories and word limits below correspond to the journal's Article Types and Submission Requirements policy. Authors must select the category appropriate to the manuscript's scholarly contribution.

Word-count policy: The stated limits include references. Supplementary materials submitted separately are not automatically counted toward the manuscript word limit. Essential methods, results, and supporting explanations must remain sufficiently documented in the main manuscript.

Selecting an Article Category

Original Research Articles present new empirical findings, theoretical contributions, or modeling results. Review Articles provide critical syntheses of existing scholarship. Policy Analysis Papers evaluate policy or governance questions using an explicit evidence base.

Methods & Frameworks Papers introduce or evaluate methodological approaches, analytical tools, or conceptual frameworks. Short Communications present concise but substantive findings. Data & AI Reports focus on environmental datasets, machine-learning applications, computational resources, and their technical validation or reuse.

Data & AI Reports must provide appropriate documentation of data provenance, analytical procedures, validation, reproducibility, limitations, and access to supporting resources. Repository links or persistent identifiers are required where resources can lawfully and ethically be shared; any restrictions must be explained.

Special Issue Contributions follow the requirements of the corresponding article category and are subject to the same scholarly and ethical standards as regular submissions. The editorial office may recommend reclassification where the selected category does not accurately represent the manuscript.

Manuscript Preparation

Language

Manuscripts must be written in clear, grammatically accurate academic English. Authors should use terminology consistently, define technical abbreviations at first use, and present their research in a manner accessible to the journal's interdisciplinary readership.

Title, Abstract, and Keywords

The manuscript title must accurately describe the principal research topic and should avoid unnecessary abbreviations, ambiguous terminology, or claims not supported by the findings.

Abstracts should clearly describe the research objective or problem, the study design or analytical approach, the principal findings or contribution, and the broader scholarly significance. The abstract must accurately represent the manuscript and must not contain unsupported conclusions.

Manuscript Organization

Manuscripts should be organized according to their article category, research design, and disciplinary conventions. Original empirical research will generally include:

• Introduction and research objectives.
• Literature review and relevant conceptual or theoretical background.
• Research design, materials, data, and methods.
• Results or principal findings.
• Discussion, limitations, and implications.
• Conclusions and references.

Review Articles, Policy Analysis Papers, Methods & Frameworks Papers, Short Communications, and Data & AI Reports may adopt alternative structures appropriate to their scholarly purposes. All submissions must nevertheless provide a coherent argument, transparent methods where applicable, and conclusions supported by the presented evidence.

Required Declarations

The following declarations are mandatory for all submissions, including manuscripts for which no funding, competing interests, or shareable research data exist.

Additional declarations, including research ethics approval, participant consent, author contributions, acknowledgments, third-party permissions, and AI-use disclosures, must be provided where relevant. Information that could reveal author identities should be supplied separately from the anonymized manuscript where necessary for double-blind review.

Formatting and File Requirements

Manuscripts should follow the formatting specifications below to support efficient editorial assessment, double-blind peer review, and subsequent publication production.

Figures, Tables, and Supplementary Materials

Figures and tables must be numbered consistently, cited in the manuscript, and accompanied by descriptive captions or titles. Labels, measurement units, abbreviations, and explanatory notes should be sufficiently clear to permit interpretation.

Raster images should normally satisfy the stated resolution requirement. Vector figures should remain legible and accurately represent the underlying information. Authors should avoid unnecessary image compression and ensure the readability of all text and graphical elements.

Maps, climate projections, environmental datasets, and model outputs should identify relevant data sources, units, geographic or temporal scales, coordinate systems, and uncertainty information where necessary for scholarly interpretation.

Supplementary datasets, software code, analytical workflows, appendices, and supporting documentation may be uploaded separately where appropriate. Authors must ensure that these materials comply with applicable intellectual property, confidentiality, and research-integrity requirements.

Reference and Citation Style

CSGS follows an APA-based author–date referencing system. Authors must use a consistent citation style throughout the manuscript and provide complete, accurate, and verifiable bibliographic information for all cited works.

Reference entries should include:

• Author names and year of publication.
• The complete title of the cited work.
• Relevant journal, book, or publisher information.
• Volume, issue, page range, or article identifier where applicable.
• A DOI expressed as a URL whenever one has been assigned.

In-Text Citations

In-text citations should identify the author and publication year. Under APA-style conventions, works with three or more authors generally use the first author's surname followed by "et al." in the text.

Reference List Example

Authors must verify all references against the original sources and confirm that cited DOI links are correct. Fabricated, inaccurate, misleading, or unverifiable references are unacceptable. AI-generated references must not be included without independent verification.

Preparing Files for Double-Blind Review

CSGS employs a double-blind peer-review system for manuscripts proceeding to external review. Authors must prepare their files to minimize the possibility that reviewers can identify the authors during scholarly evaluation.

Before submission, authors should:

• Remove author names, institutional affiliations, email addresses, and other direct identifiers from the anonymized manuscript.
• Remove or appropriately anonymize acknowledgments and other statements that could disclose author identities during review.
• Inspect document properties, comments, tracked changes, and embedded metadata for identifying information.
• Refer to previous publications by the authors in an appropriately neutral scholarly manner.
• Provide complete author information, affiliations, funding information, and required identifying declarations separately through the submission system or designated files.

Where requested, a separate title page should include complete author information and relevant declarations. The editorial office may request corrected files where anonymization requirements have not been satisfied.

Ethical Requirements

All manuscripts must comply with the journal's publication ethics policy and applicable research-integrity requirements. Authors are responsible for the originality, accuracy, completeness, and ethical conduct of their submitted work.

• Originality: Submissions must not contain plagiarism, fabricated findings, falsified data, or misleading representations of research.
• Exclusive consideration: Manuscripts must not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal.
• Authorship: All listed authors must have approved the manuscript and agreed to its submission.
• Research ethics: Research involving human participants, animals, or regulated field activities must provide relevant approvals, exemptions, consent information, or permits where required.
• Copyright and permissions: Third-party material must be appropriately attributed, and necessary permissions must be obtained.
• Research transparency: Methods, data sources, assumptions, uncertainties, limitations, and findings must be reported accurately.

Manuscripts may undergo originality and similarity screening during initial editorial assessment. Similarity reports are interpreted in context and do not independently establish research misconduct. Serious ethical concerns may result in requests for clarification, rejection, or further investigation under the journal's established policies.

Data Availability and Research Transparency

A Data Availability Statement is mandatory for every submission. The statement must accurately describe whether and how data, code, or other materials supporting the research findings can be accessed.

Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit reusable research data and supporting materials in appropriate public repositories where legal, ethical, contractual, and intellectual property conditions permit.

Where applicable, the statement should identify:

• The repository or archive in which the data or supporting materials are deposited.
• Persistent identifiers, accession numbers, or stable access links.
• Conditions governing restricted or controlled access.
• Reasons for unavailability or restrictions on public disclosure.

For modeling, computational, and data-driven submissions, including Data & AI Reports, authors should describe data provenance, analytical procedures, software or model specifications, validation, uncertainty, and limitations sufficiently to permit informed scholarly assessment.

If a study does not generate or analyze research datasets, authors must provide an appropriate statement explaining that data sharing is not applicable. The requirement to provide a statement does not override legitimate privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property, or legal restrictions.

Artificial Intelligence Use and Disclosure

Authors must disclose substantive use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) or AI-assisted tools in manuscript preparation, text generation, data analysis, image production, or other material aspects of the research process.

Disclosures should identify the tools used, their relevant functions, and how AI-assisted outputs were incorporated into the submitted work. Where applicable, AI-assisted analytical methods should be documented in the methodology section, while other substantive uses may be reported in a dedicated AI-use statement or acknowledgment.

AI systems and AI-assisted tools cannot be listed as authors. Human authors remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, validity, completeness, and ethical integrity of all submitted content.

Authors must verify AI-generated claims, references, figures, data, and analytical outputs. AI-generated or AI-modified content must not be presented misleadingly as unmodified empirical observations or independently verified scientific evidence.

Submission and Peer-Review Process

Manuscripts must be submitted through the journal's official online submission system. Submissions are evaluated under the journal's established editorial policies and double-blind peer-review procedures where external review is appropriate.

1. Online Submission

   Authors select the appropriate submission section and article category, upload the anonymized manuscript and required supporting files, and complete all submission metadata and declarations.

2. Initial Editorial Screening

   The editorial office checks scope, completeness, formatting, originality, and relevant ethical requirements. The indicative initial screening period is 3–5 days. Manuscripts may be declined without external review where appropriate.

3. Editor Assignment and Reviewer Invitation

   Manuscripts proceeding beyond screening are assigned to a qualified handling editor, who identifies and invites independent reviewers with relevant expertise.

4. Double-Blind Peer Review

   Manuscripts proceeding to external evaluation are normally assessed by at least two independent reviewers. Reviewers evaluate originality, methodological rigor, scholarly contribution, and relevance to the journal's scope.

5. First Editorial Decision

   The editorial team considers the available assessments and communicates the decision to the authors. The indicative first-decision target is approximately 30 days from submission, although actual processing times may vary.

6. Revision and Reassessment

   Authors invited to revise must submit an updated manuscript and a detailed point-by-point response. Substantial revisions may undergo additional external evaluation.

7. Final Editorial Decision

   The Editor-in-Chief or another appropriately authorized editor determines whether the manuscript satisfies the journal's requirements. The final-decision target is approximately 45 days from submission where feasible; additional review rounds may extend this period.

8. Production and Publication

   Accepted manuscripts proceed to copyediting, typesetting, proof review, metadata preparation, DOI registration where applicable, and online publication. Routine production is targeted for approximately 7–10 days after acceptance, subject to completion of necessary publication requirements.

Responding to Reviewer Comments

Revised manuscripts must be accompanied by a response document addressing the editor's and reviewers' comments individually. Authors should identify relevant changes in the revised manuscript and provide reasoned scholarly explanations where specific recommendations have not been adopted.

Authors must follow the deadline and file requirements stated in the editorial decision letter. A request for revision does not guarantee acceptance, and additional review may be required.

Article Processing Charges and Waivers

CSGS operates an open-access publishing model. Article processing charges (APCs) may apply to accepted manuscripts according to the journal's published APC policy.

There are no manuscript submission fees. Authors should consult the journal's official APC information for applicable charges, payment conditions, and available waivers or discounts before submitting their work.

Waivers or discounts may be available to eligible authors, including those from low-income countries or those experiencing demonstrable financial hardship, subject to the journal's published eligibility criteria.

Pre-Submission Checklist

Before submitting a manuscript, authors should verify that all applicable requirements have been satisfied.

• The manuscript is original, within the scope of CSGS, and not under consideration by another journal.
• The correct research section and one of the six recognized article categories have been selected.
• The manuscript meets the applicable article-category word limit, including references.
• Standard submissions include an abstract of 150–250 words; Short Communications have an abstract of no more than 150 words.
• The manuscript contains 4–6 relevant keywords.
• Formatting requirements have been followed, including file type, font, spacing, margins, and figure quality.
• The manuscript has been anonymized for double-blind review, and author information has been provided separately as required.
• All authors have approved the manuscript and its submission, and authorship information is accurate.
• Funding, conflict of interest, and data availability statements have been included.
• Applicable ethics approval, consent, and third-party permission requirements have been addressed.
• Figures, tables, references, citations, and DOI information have been checked for accuracy.
• Substantive use of AI-assisted tools has been disclosed where applicable.
• Data & AI Reports include appropriate reproducibility documentation and repository information, or justified access restrictions.
• The uploaded files and submission metadata are complete, accurate, and mutually consistent.