The Initiative of the Sustainability Impact Factor
The Sustainability Impact Factor initiative was highlighted at the European Marketing Academy Conference (EMAC), held from May 26th to 31st, 2024, in Bucharest, Romania, particularly during the “Meet the Editors” session.Traditionally, various impact factors and journal metrics (e.g., Journal Impact Factor and 5-Year Journal Impact Factor by Clarivate Analytics, CiteScore by Elsevier, Eigenfactor Score and Article Influence Score by Eigenfactor.org, and SCImago Journal Rank by SCImago) have been used to compare and rank journals, publishers, and scientific articles. However, these metrics have not effectively guided research efforts towards addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs).
Before entering academia, my career involved working with the European Union, foreign administrations, and United Nations organizations such as the United Nations Environment Programme. Most of my international civil service career focused on planning, preparing, and implementing projects aimed at fulfilling UNSDGs in areas like poverty alleviation, social and gender equality, climate change mitigation, and environmental protection. UN practices in these fields include implementing comprehensive and targeted policies, promoting sustainable practices, enhancing international cooperation, and ensuring inclusive participation to achieve a more equitable and sustainable world.
My personal goal has always been to integrate more research and scientific approaches to make these practices more effective and impactful. Currently, I work at the University of Eastern Finland as a tenure-track assistant professor, focusing on sustainability marketing. This involves innovating and developing sustainable products and services for consumers, fostering sustainable values, and educating people towards more sustainable practices. I believe that sustainability marketing, with its multidisciplinary approach incorporating innovation research, lifecycle assessments, consumer research, systems science, and design research, can be a meaningful and effective means to combat global challenges and achieve the UNSDGs.
The reception of my efforts to find scientifically proven, effective, and impactful methods to meet the UNSDGs and the Sustainability Impact Factor was very positive at the EMAC conference. This included support from editors such as Detelina Marinova (Journal of Marketing), Ming-Hui Huang (Journal of Service Research), Mirella Kleijnen (Journal of Business Research), and Arvind Rangaswamy (Journal of Interactive Marketing). I also leveraged my existing UN network, contacting Sherri Aldis, Director of the United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC) Department of Global Communications, as well as UN officers involved with the SDG Publishers Compact, including Mary Glenn, Irina Lumelsky, Antje Kristin Watermann, Arni Snaevarr, and Sofia Emilia Stenlund.
To sum, currently, publishers and journals compete using general impact factors, with minimal attention to sustainability issues and the UNSDGs. We need measures to steer scientific journals’ focus towards combating global threats and pursuing the UNSDGs. The Sustainability Impact Factor will incentivize publishers, journals, and eventually all scholars across different scientific fields. The UN, especially stakeholders and signatories of the SDG Publishers Compact, will play a crucial role in ensuring that all scientific publishers and journals adopt this impact factor and decide on the specification of the calculation method. This is the current stage of developing this initiative, and I hope this website and blog will provide a platform for stakeholders from academia, publishing, journals, and international administrations to voice their opinions, views, and updates on developing the Sustainability Impact Factor.
The Founder of the Sustainability Impact Factor Initiative:
Jani Holopainen
jani.holopainen@uef.fi