About Carbon Neutral Systems

Carbon Neutral Systems

Carbon Neutral Systems is an English-language, multidisciplinary open-access journal with electronic ISSN 3059-3875, launched in 2025 and published by Springer with Kunming University of Science and Technology in Kunming, Yunnan, which holds the journal's copyright and fully supports its article-processing charges. Its founding editorial, Editorial: toward Carbon Neutral Systems, by Hua Wang, Michael Zhengmeng Hou and Hans-Peter Beck, appeared as Carbon Neutral Systems 2025, 1:1. The journal was launched by Kunming University of Science and Technology in close cooperation with Clausthal University of Technology in Germany and Springer Nature, to build a platform connecting interdisciplinary subjects contributing to the global energy transition and carbon neutrality. Over half of the articles it published in 2025 were related to one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Origins and history

Carbon Neutral Systems is among the newest journals in this directory: it was born, in its editors' words, at a critical moment in the global pursuit of a net-zero future, and published its first volume in 2025. China has committed to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, and the journal's launch editorial frames the title as a response to that moment, aiming to be more than a repository of knowledge: a dynamic, boundary-breaking platform connecting ideas across disciplines and continents. Its cooperation structure, a Yunnan university with a German technical university and an international publisher, was built into the journal from its first issue.

Publisher, sponsor and editorial home

Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, Yunnan, as the launching and supporting institution, in cooperation with Clausthal University of Technology, Germany, and Springer Nature as publisher. The editorial board is composed of 57 globally recognized experts from 15 countries, including 16 academicians. With the university's generous support, all article-processing charges are waived for authors until the end of 2028, a founding arrangement recorded in the journal's launch editorial.

What it publishes: scope and subject coverage

carbon-neutral science, technology and management in multidimensional form: sustainable energy systems, sustainable materials and processes, green manufacturing, raw materials supply and circular resource efficiency from exploration to recycling across the full value chain, carbon capture and storage, renewable integration, decarbonisation pathways, digitalization and artificial intelligence for energy systems, and carbon-neutral and circular economies, including policy, finance, governance and societal transformation. It welcomes original research articles and comprehensive reviews.

Place and institutional context

Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, is a centre for non-ferrous metals, hydropower-rich south-western China's energy research and the home of Kunming University of Science and Technology, one of China's leading metallurgical and materials universities. A carbon journal anchored there, with a German subsurface-energy partner at Clausthal, connects Yunnan's resource industries and renewable endowment to the international decarbonisation research community, and its Kunming base distinguishes it within China's crowded carbon-journal field.

Indexing, metrics and recognition

As a 2025 Springer launch, the journal is published open access on the Springer Nature platform with DOIs in the 10.1007/s44438 series, single-anonymous peer review, and Sustainable Development Goals badging for relevant articles, over 50 percent of its 2025 output being SDG-related. Its bibliographic identity is fixed by its electronic ISSN 3059-3875 and its Kunming University of Science and Technology copyright line.

Readership and use

The journal's readers are energy-systems researchers, materials and process engineers, carbon capture specialists, circular-economy and resource researchers, and policy, finance and governance scholars working on the net-zero transition. Its APC waiver to the end of 2028 and open-access model are designed to draw exactly this interdisciplinary, international authorship and readership from the outset.

Distinctions and similar titles

Carbon Neutral Systems is distinct from the two other carbon-neutrality journals in this rollout: Carbon Neutrality, published by Springer with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Carbon Neutralization, the Wenzhou University-Wiley journal listed in this batch. Each has a different sponsor, publisher and ISSN. Carbon Neutral Systems (ISSN 3059-3875, Kunming, Springer, 2025) is the systems-oriented title, spanning technology, management, policy and circular economy, rather than a chemistry- or energy-devices-focused journal.

Standing in its field

Taken together, the documented facts give Carbon Neutral Systems a clear and durable place in China's scholarly publishing landscape. Its identifiers, sponsor and editorial base are matters of public record, its contents can be followed issue by issue through the channels described above, and its subject community treats it as a working journal rather than a ceremonial one. For a directory of world news and scholarly media, that combination of verifiable identity, continuous publication and a defined readership is what qualifies Carbon Neutral Systems for a full profile: it is an active organ of its field, rooted in its city and institution, and distinguishable without ambiguity from every similarly named title.

The founding editorial's programme

The journal's founding editorial sets out its programme in terms worth recording. Writing at what they call a critical moment in the collective pursuit of a net-zero future, editors Hua Wang of Kunming University of Science and Technology, Michael Zhengmeng Hou of the Institute of Subsurface Energy Systems at Clausthal University of Technology, and Hans-Peter Beck present Carbon Neutral Systems as a multidisciplinary open-access journal dedicated to catalysing innovation, integration and insight. Its scope headings include raw materials supply and circular resource efficiency, addressing the full value chain from exploration to recycling; sustainable energy systems and processes; digitalization and artificial intelligence; and carbon-neutral and circular economies, where policy, finance, governance and societal transformation meet the technology. The editorial board of 57 globally recognized experts from 15 countries, including 16 academicians, and the waiver of all article-processing charges until the end of 2028, underwritten by Kunming University of Science and Technology, are presented as founding commitments, not aspirations, giving the young journal an international board and a no-fee window in which to build its first volumes.

Carbon journals compared

The comparison this rollout requires can be made precisely. Carbon Neutrality (Springer, with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, from 2022) aims to be a flagship for low-carbon and net-zero research, publishing on integrated smart energy systems, renewable energy, advanced storage, hydrogen, decarbonization of traditional energy, carbon capture and utilization, carbon sinks and sequestration, under editor-in-chief Chang-Ying Zhao. Carbon Neutralization (Wiley, with Wenzhou University, from 2022) is a chemistry- and energy-materials-centred title with reported 2025 CiteScore 18.2 and impact factor 21.5 in the rollout records. Carbon Neutral Systems (Springer, with Kunming University of Science and Technology and Clausthal University of Technology, from 2025, ISSN 3059-3875) is the youngest and the broadest in disciplinary intent, adding management, circular economy, raw-materials value chains, digitalization and governance to the energy-technology core. Three journals, three cities (Shanghai, Wenzhou, Kunming), three sponsors and three ISSNs: the shared carbon vocabulary should not be mistaken for a shared journal.

Access and how to follow it

Readers who want to follow Carbon Neutral Systems should start from the bibliographic record given in this profile: the exact title, the ISSN and sponsor named above, and, where the clean record for this rollout supplies an official website, that site. Those identifiers resolve unambiguously in CNKI, publisher platforms and international indexes, and they protect readers against the commonest error in this part of the Chinese journal system, confusing one title with a similarly named journal from another city, sponsor or language edition. Where no official website is recorded, the journal is best reached through its sponsor institution and the standard Chinese journal databases under its ISSN.