Call for papers: Sustainability, Risk and Environmental Challenges of the 21st Century

A special issue of International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management

Sustainability is a central theme in decision making for organizations pursuing long term strategies. This focus is necessary to ensure the resiliency of the environment in which business continuity is not jeopardized and economic security is not placed in peril. Nevertheless, careful analysis is necessary to ensure that implemented approaches do not have unintended consequences which are hazardous in some unseen fashion.

There is a vibrant debate going on regarding global warming and climate change, with increasing concern over the preservation of the ecosystem. Proponents of the global warming theory warn about the cataclysmic effects of neglecting the environment in designing systems for the 21st century. Others believe that the environmental changes are natural phenomena that need to go through their natural cycles - that they are not necessarily man-made, but a natural outcome of the interaction among the celestial bodies in the Universe.

While the jury is still out on the causes of global warming, there is no doubt that it is important to begin to analyze the effects of technology decisions on the environment. Airplanes are getting more powerful and consume a lot more fuel than they did 50 years ago. The “explosion” of electronic devices has resulted in a very dense network of communications hardware all over the world. Population growth has increased energy consumption – particularly fossil fuels. There has also been a dramatic increase in the level of awareness in developing countries regarding the impact of economic activity on the global environment. Countries that were oblivious of the interdependence of their economic activity with other countries are beginning to engage in dialog with other international organizations to pursue programs that are in consonance with the evolution of energy-efficient systems.

These new attitudes present opportunities for industries in these countries to engage in environmentally-friendly activities so as to be able to play significant roles in the global market place. Virtually any new enterprise has to perform an impact analysis to determine the extent to which the enterprise affects the ecological balance of the world. It is therefore important that technology and business experts engage in research to assess the risks and benefits associated with expansion of their activities so as to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Strategic importance of energy conservation in the 21st century
• Business continuity and sustainability
• Impact of technology on the environment
• Environmental innovations in information technology
• Unintended consequences sustainability strategies
• Risk management technology investment
• The role of oil and gas production on emerging technologies
• Contingency planning against energy shortages
• Environmental terrorism
• Ethical issues in sustainability
• Business models for a healthy environment
• Computational intelligence for mitigating disasters
• Modeling risk decisions with imprecise information
• Forecasting trends in environmental conservation
• Information security and resiliency
• Crisis detection and decision making

Important Dates
Submission of Abstract (1 -2 pages): 1 May, 2010
Notification to Author: 15 May, 2010
Submission of Paper: 1 November, 2010
Notification to Author: 15 December, 2010
Submission of Final Paper: 1 February, 2011