Ethic & Policies

Energy Sustainability is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, academic integrity, transparency, and responsible scholarly communication. The journal follows ethical principles for peer-reviewed publications and expects all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher, to uphold professional and ethical responsibilities.

1. Publication Ethics

All manuscripts submitted to Energy Sustainability must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration by another journal or conference. Authors must ensure that their work is free from plagiarism, data fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, and unethical manipulation of research findings. The journal may take appropriate action when ethical misconduct is suspected, including requesting clarification from authors, rejecting the manuscript, issuing corrections or retractions, or notifying relevant institutions when necessary.

2. Authorship and Contribution

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the conception, design, execution, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the manuscript. All listed authors must approve the final version of the manuscript and agree to its submission. Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged appropriately. Any change in authorship after submission must be approved by all authors and justified to the editorial office.

3. Plagiarism Policy

Energy Sustainability takes plagiarism seriously. Submitted manuscripts may be checked using plagiarism detection software. Manuscripts containing plagiarism, excessive similarity, unattributed text, duplicate publication, or improper citation may be returned to authors, rejected, or handled according to the journal’s publication ethics procedures. Authors are responsible for properly citing all sources, including text, figures, tables, data, methods, and ideas taken from previous publications.

4. Peer Review Policy

All submitted manuscripts undergo initial editorial screening to assess relevance, originality, quality, and conformity with the journal’s focus and scope. Manuscripts that pass the initial screening will be sent for double-blind peer review, in which the identities of authors and reviewers are kept confidential. Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, timely, and confidential evaluations. Final editorial decisions are based on reviewer recommendations, manuscript quality, relevance to the journal scope, and compliance with publication ethics.

5. Conflict of Interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest that may influence the research, review, or editorial decision-making process. Conflicts of interest may include financial, institutional, personal, academic, or professional relationships. If a conflict of interest exists, the editorial team will take appropriate steps to ensure fairness, transparency, and independence in the publication process.

6. Research Data and Reproducibility

Authors are encouraged to present their methods, data, models, assumptions, and analysis clearly so that the research can be understood, evaluated, and, where possible, reproduced. Authors may be asked to provide supporting data, simulation files, codes, or additional documentation during the review process. For studies involving modelling, simulation, optimization, experimental systems, or case studies, authors should clearly describe input data, boundary conditions, assumptions, and validation procedures.

7. Human and Animal Research Ethics

Research involving human participants, surveys, interviews, personal data, medical data, or behavioural studies must comply with relevant ethical standards. Authors should state whether ethical approval was obtained and confirm that informed consent was secured where required. Research involving animals must follow applicable institutional and national ethical guidelines. The manuscript should include a clear statement on ethical approval when applicable.

8. Copyright and Licensing

Authors retain the copyright of their published work and grant Energy Sustainability the right of first publication. Articles are published as open-access articles, normally under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), allowing others to share and reuse the work with proper attribution. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reuse copyrighted materials, including figures, tables, images, diagrams, datasets, and long text excerpts from other sources.

9. Corrections, Retractions, and Withdrawal

The journal may publish corrections when significant errors are identified in published articles. Retractions may be issued in cases involving major errors, unreliable findings, plagiarism, duplicate publication, ethical misconduct, or other serious violations. Authors may request manuscript withdrawal before publication by providing a clear reason to the editorial office. Withdrawal after acceptance or publication may be subject to editorial review and journal policy.

10. Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are made independently based on manuscript quality, originality, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, and relevance to the journal’s focus and scope. The publisher does not influence editorial decisions regarding acceptance or rejection of manuscripts.