One year of Environmental Science: Advances

One year ago, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) launched the Environmental Science: Advances journal that aims to bring a distinctive multidisciplinary outlook to environmental issues and their multiple connections, from chemistry and microbiology to economics, biodiversity, and human health. In its first year, Environmental Science: Advances published more than 70 papers covering topics as broad as microbial biofabrication of textiles, PFAS analysis, microplastics in ecosystems, and metabolomics in environmental science. These studies enhance our holistic understanding of the environment, and taken together, connect different compartments of the environment with human and animal health and wellbeing.

Scientific activity has been strongly encouraged to contribute to peace and prosperity for people and the planet, the major ambition of the 2030 United Nations agenda, through 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) listed in Table 1. Environment-related matters are at the heart of most of the SDGs (6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15). In addition, several other SDGs (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 16) will be positively impacted by combatting and preventing pollution, improved sanitation and water quality, protection of natural resources, sustainable food production or green economy practices. While the SDGs were proposed for developing and developed countries, the challenges are distinct in different regions of the world. Take the example of wastewater and sanitation, which is still non-existent or limited for almost half of the world’s population and contending with massive amounts of pharmaceutical and personal care products in the most developed countries, with yet unpredictable consequences for human and environmental health. The UN SDGs 2022 report details some achievements, but highlights the impact of intersecting crises – pandemics, war and climate change – that are jeopardizing the goals previously established.

Table 1 The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)

SDG number	Description
1. No poverty	End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. Zero hunger	End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Good health and well-being	Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Quality education	Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Gender equality	Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Clean water and sanitation	Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7. Affordable energy	Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Decent work and economic growth	Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure	Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
10. Reduced inequalities	Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Sustainable cities and communities	Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Responsible consumption and production	Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Climate action	Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
14. Life below water	Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
15. Life on land	Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Peace, justice and strong institutions	Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Partnerships for the goals	Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

Scientific research and innovation are vital to stay ahead of the existing and upcoming crises. And scientific journals are crucial for showcasing novelty, interdisciplinary intersections and impact. Research and innovation are being increasingly challenged to extend the applications and implications of their disciplinary focus to interconnecting fields. One powerful example is One Health, where agricultural production intersects with human health or environmental pollution, or where city infrastructure intersects with water quality or sustainable food production. Circular economy is another example where interdisciplinary approaches – energy, waste management, life cycle assessment, and economy, among many others – are required to bring together impactful results. These are the intersections that Environmental Science: Advances aims to publish and to offer its readers – the scientific community, policy makers, and authorities.

The Royal Society of Chemistry continues to support the environmental science community.

As a not-for-profit professional society and scientific publisher, the RSC is committed to upholding its reputation for quality and rigorous peer review while supporting a smooth, fair and sustainable transition to open access publishing. Earlier this year, the RSC became the first chemistry publisher to commit to a 100% open access future and aims to make all RSC-owned journals fully open access within five years.† As a gold open access journal, Environmental Science: Advances has been championing open access from its launch and our authors also benefit from all article processing charges (APCs) being waived until mid-2024.

Environmental Science: Advances complements the scopes of the RSC's other environmental science journals Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts (ESPI), Environmental Science: Nano (ESN), Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology (ESWRT) and Environmental Science: Atmospheres (ESA) to provide the research community with a home for their environmental science work across all disciplines. While Environmental Science: Advances has an all-encompassing scope for the environmental sciences, the other journals have more of a chemistry focus. ESN is dedicated to the interactions between nano aspects of the environment, while ESA publishes atmospheric work. ESWRT is interested in sustainable water technologies while ESPI, which is celebrating its 10^th birthday in 2023, highlights studies on the natural environment. More details about our companion journals can be found here: https://rsc.li/envsci.

The five environmental science journals also form part of the RSC's wider strategic approach to sustainability.‡ As part of this, the RSC has run a two year programme through 2021–2022 which used the UN climate conference in Glasgow, Conference of the Parties 26 (COP26), as a springboard, committed to the UN Race to Zero and signed up to the SDG Publishers Compact which aims to accelerate progress to achieve the SDGs by 2030.§

We work very closely with both the Editorial Board and the Editorial Office. Submitted manuscripts are professionally handled by our dedicated Associate Editors Pernilla Bohlin-Nizzetto, Ru-Jin Huang, Joe Ryan, David Weissbrodt and Liwu Zhang, supported by Editorial Board member Silvia Lacorte and our Advisory Board members. The journal's Executive Editor is Emma Eley who leads the strategic development of the journal. Emma works alongside Jon Ferrier, Deputy Editor, and Sarah Whitbread, Editorial Production Manager, who coordinate a team of Assistant Editors who promote the journal, invite authors to publish, and support authors and reviewers at every stage of the publication process. If you're interested in submitting to the journal, the team would love to hear from you (email: E-mail: ESAdvances-rsc@rsc.org).

Zongwei Cai, Kevin C. Jones and Celia Manaia

Editors-in-chief

December 2022

Footnotes

† https://www.rsc.org/news-events/articles/2022/oct/rsc-oa-commitment/

‡ https://www.rsc.org/new-perspectives/sustainability/our-strategic-approach-to-sustainability/

§ https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-publishers-compact/

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