The Role of Law in Sustainability Transitions

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Role of Law in Sustainability Transitions

Journal: Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

Publisher: Elsevier

Submission Deadline: 26 February 2027

This Special Issue is by Guest Editor Invitation Only.

Introduction

Sustainability transitions require systemic change across technological, economic, and institutional domains. While research has advanced socio-technical understanding of these transitions, law's role remains underexplored.

Legal frameworks are often seen simply as constraints or enablers — yet this binary approach overlooks law's dynamic, co-evolving nature with markets, governance, and culture. Law is not merely coercive but deeply embedded within institutions — shaping transitions through market formation, organizational behavior, and normative change.

Firms act as institutional entrepreneurs, co-creating legal norms. Legal systems disperse power, sometimes countering intended purposes. New legal frameworks can foster innovation but may also hinder it — highlighting law's complex, multifaceted influence on sustainability transitions.

Scope & Significance

This Special Issue invites theoretical and empirical papers on the evolving role of law in sustainability transitions. Contributions may explore how legal frameworks enable or hinder transformative change — drawing on transition theories and interdisciplinary perspectives from law, economics, politics, and governance.

Submissions may span sectors including:

• Energy

• Industry

• Agriculture

• Finance

• Mobility

• Urban development

• Circular economy

The editors welcome reflections on methodology — including doctrinal analysis of statutes and case law, and socio-legal approaches that reveal how law operates in practice within multi-level governance.

Papers may focus on democratic, hybrid, authoritarian, or pluralistic systems — at national, European, or international levels — and examine diverse actors such as governments, NGOs, indigenous communities, enterprises, and transnational institutions.

The editors also encourage engagement with juridification and communicative action — highlighting both emancipatory and constraining dimensions of law in sustainability transitions.

List of Topic Areas

Manuscripts are invited on themes including, but not limited to:

1. Legal frameworks as enablers or constraints of sustainability transitions

2. Law's co-evolutionary role with markets, governance, and institutional change

3. Firms as institutional entrepreneurs in co-creating legal norms

4. Legal frameworks and market formation for green innovation

5. Law and energy transition — regulation, policy, and governance

6. Legal dimensions of industrial, agricultural, and mobility transitions

7. Circular economy and law — frameworks, standards, and accountability

8. Sustainable finance and legal accountability mechanisms

9. Urban development law and sustainability governance

10. Multi-level governance and legal frameworks — national, European, and international

11. Socio-legal approaches to sustainability transitions in practice

12. Law in democratic, hybrid, authoritarian, and pluralistic governance systems

13. Indigenous communities, NGOs, and transnational institutions in legal sustainability transitions

14. Juridification, communicative action, and emancipatory dimensions of sustainability law

15. Interdisciplinary perspectives — law, economics, politics, and governance in transitions

Dr. Aikaterini Argyrou Nyenrode Business University, Breukelen, Netherlands 📧 a.argyrou2@nyenrode.nl

Dr. Sanne Akerboom Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands 📧 s.akerboom@uu.nl

Prof. Niko Soininen University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland 📧 niko.soininen@uef.fi

Prof. Siddharth Sareen Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Lysaker, Norway 📧 ssareen@fni.no

Key Deadlines

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 26 February 2027

Submission Guidelines

⚠️ This Special Issue is by Guest Editor Invitation Only.

Submissions are made through Editorial Manager, the official online submission system for Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions.

⚠️ All submissions must be original and must not be under review elsewhere at the time of submission.

For author guidelines, visit the official Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions journal page on the Elsevier website.

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