Submissions

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Submitting poetry, fiction and artworks

● – Convocatoria a Artistas (Spanish translation)

Submitting articles

The Journal publishes a mixture of commissioned and unsolicited content. Prospective authors are advised to read through the information presented below, as well as our mission statement and aims, to help with preparing a submission. The submission process is handled by email. In order to initiate correspondence with us, please get in touch using our contact form.

Important notes

● To ensure that we can process your submission, please contact us early in the writing process with a bullet-pointed proposal of what you plan to cover.

● While we are looking for intellectual rigour, contributions should – owing to the breadth of topics covered within the scope of the Journal – be aimed at a non-specialist audience.

● We are particularly keen to be sent pieces with practical messages offering a 'way forward'.

● At the time of submission please supply: [A] a short paragraph to summarize for peer reviewers how your piece is ecocentric in its approach (an essential condition for publication); and [B] confirmation that your piece has not been published already in any form and is not in consideration for any other website or publication.

● We are unable to accept pieces in which the references have not been formatted to our house style (see below).

● Finally, please note that we cannot pay contributors.

Upcoming issues

Vol 8 no 1 (February 2025)

Submissions for this issue are now closed.

Vol 8 no 2 (August 2025)

This issue will consider the vital question of how to turn ecocentrism from a high moral ideal into actual daily practice on the ground. You are invited to submit a piece by the deadline of the end of February 2025.

Vol 9 no 1 (February 2026)

This issue will bring to bear ecocentric perspectives on the troubled topic of what it means to be indigenous, especially in relation not only to the land but to the Earth. You are invited to submit a piece by the deadline of the end of August 2025.

Vol 9 no 2 (August 2026)

This issue will explore architecture, urban design and planning, and heritage conservation ecocentrically, focusing on how humans can stay connected to the Earth while reducing threats to wildlife. You are invited to submit a piece by the deadline of the end of February 2026.

Main content types

Opinion

● 500–1000 words (the closer to 500 the better) plus up to five references

● Provides a concise viewpoint on a particular issue

Reflection

● 1000–2000 words (the closer to 1000 the better) plus up to ten references

● Offers a more developed perspective on a particular issue

Long article

● 2000–3000 words plus up to 20 references

● Considers a broader issue in a balanced fashion

Topic areas

● Biodiversity and bioabundance

● Protection and restoration of wilder habitats

● Animal welfare

● Energy and climate change

● Waste and toxics

● Human overpopulation and overconsumption

● Philosophical aspects of ecocentrism, deep ecology and deep green ethics

● Earth-centred law

● Ecological aesthetics and art

● The ecological potential of urban life

● Religious support for protecting the ecosphere

Peer review

Factors that will be taken into account in peer review will be:

● Clarity and accuracy of prose

● Novelty of the ideas presented

● Whether or not criticism is fair and constructive (and balanced with positive alternatives)

● Potential impact in meeting one or more of the Journal's aims

Author guidance: Structure

Please submit the text along with any tables and boxes together in a single word-processor file, and send through any figures as individual files.

The file should contain the following sections.

[A] Information

1 A title of up to 100 characters including spaces

2 Full names and very brief biographical details for each author
Please note that we allow no more than eight authors per piece

3 Preferred means of receiving correspondence if there is a corresponding author

4 Disclosure of any funding that has been received for the piece and any financial conflicts that any of the authors may have

5 Confirmation that the piece is not being considered by another journal

6 Confirmation that you have permission for any tables or figures taken from another source to be reproduced in the Journal at no cost to the Journal

7 A note if you wish for a different arrangement from our copyright agreement, which is that copyright of the piece remains with the author(s) but that the Journal has the right for it to appear on its website in readable and printable format indefinitely, and the right for all published works to be translated into other languages for further distribution

8 Confirmation that you, the submitting author, have permission to act on behalf of the co-authors throughout the publishing process (for multi-authored pieces)

[B] Abstract and keywords

● For Long Articles only: An unstructured abstract of 150–200 words, which should be written in the third person

● For all pieces: Up to five suggested keywords (please note that there is a drop-down menu of the keywords we use here)

[C] Main body

● Please write the main body of the submission in the first person

● There should not be a heading used before the first paragraph of the main body, but otherwise headings should be used liberally to break up a piece, with up to two heading levels allowed

[D] Acknowledgements

● This should include, but not be limited to, any sources of funding received by the author(s) in relation to the article

[E] Reference list

● Please format this in accordance with the house style below

[F] Tables and boxes

● Please include titles and legends along with the tables and boxes

[G] Titles and legends of figures

● The figures should be submitted as separate files from the main submission document

Author guidance: House style

General

● Abbreviations should be defined at the point of their first usage, with the full version followed by the shortened form in brackets

● Try to limit the number of abbreviations used in the submission

● Articles submitted in American English will be edited to UK English

● Write dates in the format exemplified by: '7 August 2016'

Figures, tables and boxes

● Figures, tables and boxes should work as stand-alone items, and thus abbreviations should be defined in a legend, independently of their appearance or non-appearance in the article

● A 'table' has more than one column; a 'box' is a single-column list or a block of text

● Number figures, tables and boxes consecutively and independently, according to their first point of citation, and use 'a', 'b' and so on to denote subcomponents

● For footnote symbols, use the following order: *; †; ‡; §; ||; ¶; **; ††; ‡‡; §§; ||||; ¶¶

In-text citations

● Use the name-and-year (Harvard) system for in-text citations – e.g. 'This has been exemplified by Arnold and Barnes (2012) and also described elsewhere (Chang, 2009)'

● Where there are three or more authors, give the first author's surname followed by: 'and colleagues', or an equivalent phrase, if in the flow of the text; or 'et al.' if in brackets – e.g. '(Dravid et al., 2009)'

● Where multiple references are cited at the same point in the text, they should be ordered chronologically first, and then alphabetically – e.g. '(Chang, 2009; Dravid et al., 2010; Arnold and Barnes, 2012)'

● If the same author or authors have multiple publications in the same citation, each citation after the first should be given with the year only – e.g. 'This has been demonstrated in three papers (Dravid et al., 2007; 2010; Arnold and Barnes, 2012)'

● Where direct quotations are provided, please provide the page number from the original source in the citation

● Statements supported by a personal communication should be indicated as such, including the name of the person – e.g. '(personal communication with Mark Franklin)' – but not listed in the references section

Reference list

● Arrange references alphabetically first (breaking 'ties' on the first author by using the second author, and so on), and then chronologically

● If two or more references are so similar that they would lead to duplicated in-text citations, add lower-case letters immediately after the years (starting with 'a' and working along in the order of the reference list), in both the reference list and the in-text citation – e.g. '(Day et al., 2010a; 2010b)'

● Express page ranges without redundant numerals after the dash

● Present up to two initials for each author, with hyphenated first names indicated with a hyphen

Citing journal articles

● Write journal names in full

● Format journal article citations in the style of the following example: 'Harris AB, Harris J-M and Khan E (2021) Green economies: Determining if they are possible. Journal of Green Economies 9: 1243–8.'

● Issue numbers should not be given, but supplement details should be included, in parentheses between the volume number and the colon that follows it – e.g. 'Journal of Green Economies 9 (Supplement 2): 13–19.'

● Papers accepted but not yet published should be included in the reference list as 'in press' – e.g. 'Harris J-M (2019) Green economies: Where next? Journal of Green Economies 12: in press.'

Citing conference presentations

● Format conference-presentation citations in the style of the following example: 'Jahani F (2018) Lessons from the front line. Presented at: 15th International Congress on Green Cities (oral 43). Freiburg, Germany, 11–13 March.'

Citing books and book chapters

● Format whole-book citations in the style of the following example: 'White F and Moore B (2021) Being green: What it actually means (2nd edition). Academic Press, London, UK.'

● Format single-chapter citations in the style of the following example: 'Fisher G (2020) Green education. In: Merrington B and Kriek U, eds. Green Citizenship: An introduction. Ecological Press Inc, NY, USA: 15–32.'

Citing online materials

● Format web document citations in the style of the following example: 'Ng F (2013) Being green. Available at https://is.gd/49X1b9 (accessed May 2021).'