Cleaner Production Letters: Scopus Indexing, Scope, Metrics & Submission Guide

Quick Answer: What Is Cleaner Production Letters?

Cleaner Production Letters is an international, online open-access journal published by Elsevier. Its online ISSN is 2666-7916. The journal began publishing in 2021 and covers cleaner production, sustainability, environmental systems, circular economy, energy, manufacturing, management and related interdisciplinary themes.

Elsevier describes the journal as international and inter-, multi- and transdisciplinary. Its purpose is to publish original and review-based work on emerging cleaner-production and sustainability questions with potentially high societal significance. Researchers considering CLPL should verify three things before submission: whether their topic fits the journal’s cleaner-production/sustainability mandate, whether the paper demonstrates an integrative perspective, and whether the manuscript can clearly explain its societal contribution.

Key Takeaways

• Publisher: Elsevier; the journal is fully open access.
• Identity: Cleaner Production Letters (CLPL), online ISSN 2666-7916; Scopus Source ID 21101194575.
• Indexing: Elsevier currently lists Scopus, DOAJ and ESCI.
• Scope: emerging cleaner-production and sustainability research with interdisciplinary and societal-impact orientation.
• Article types: original articles, review articles and letters to the editor.
• Peer review: single-anonymized review; suitable papers are typically sent to at least two independent reviewers.
• Submission fit: a cover letter must address four journal-fit questions, each in no more than 80 words.
• Fees: the journal charges an APC, but current public sources show different amounts; authors should verify the fee displayed by Elsevier at the point of submission.

Journal Information at a Glance

What This Page Covers

• the journal’s aims, scope and subject coverage
• Scopus and other major indexing information
• available journal metrics and how to interpret them cautiously
• article types and likely manuscript fit
• manuscript preparation and submission requirements
• peer review, publication timelines and editorial screening
• open-access fees, ethics and data policies
• a practical pre-submission checklist and Contentxprtz support options

Methodology and Sources

This profile was prepared from the journal’s official Elsevier/ScienceDirect pages, the official Elsevier Guide for Authors, the Scopus source record supplied for this task, the ISSN Portal and DOAJ. The journal’s metrics, fee, editorial team, timelines and policies can change, so authors should reconfirm time-sensitive details on the official journal website immediately before submission.

What Does Cleaner Production Letters Aim to Publish?

Cleaner Production Letters aims to publish emerging cleaner-production and sustainability research that combines disciplinary perspectives and offers significance beyond a narrowly technical problem. Elsevier describes the journal as focused on cleaner production, environmental and sustainability research and practice, with an emphasis on innovative technological, human and institutional strategies, methods, models and cases that contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.

The scope includes circular supply chains, sustainable consumption, sustainable business models, circular economy, product-service systems and the sharing economy, sustainability assessment and indicators, sustainability management and reporting, advanced and green manufacturing, social drivers and impacts of cleaner production, pollution-prevention strategies, life-cycle thinking, carbon neutralisation, clean and secure energy, environmental systems engineering and the bio-based economy.

That breadth does not mean every sustainability manuscript will fit. The journal explicitly cautions that specialised work relevant only to a very narrow discipline or audience may not be considered. A technically strong paper on a local process, material or optimisation problem may therefore need to show why the findings matter to cleaner production or sustainable development at a wider system, policy, organisational or societal level.

Which Research Topics Are Most Likely to Fit?

Recent journal content supports this interdisciplinary reading of the scope. Published studies include work on sustainable maintenance, recycled pesticide-packaging supply chains, sustainable-building risk management, product-service-system life-cycle assessment, sustainable fashion rental and transport decarbonisation. These examples are useful fit signals, not a guarantee that similar topics will be accepted.

Is Cleaner Production Letters Indexed in Scopus?

Yes. Cleaner Production Letters is listed in Scopus under Source ID 21101194575. Elsevier’s journal insights page also lists Scopus, DOAJ and the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) under abstracting and indexing.

For PhD scholars or faculty members whose institution requires a Scopus-indexed journal, the Scopus listing is relevant, but it is still prudent to open the current source profile and confirm active coverage at the time of submission. Universities can also impose additional rules about quartile, subject category, publication date or indexing status at the time the article is finally published.

What Are the Current Journal Metrics?

Elsevier’s currently indexed ScienceDirect page displays a CiteScore of 6.2. Because citation metrics are released on reporting cycles and may be updated after a page is crawled or cached, researchers should use the number as a dated indicator rather than a permanent property of the journal.

For SJR, SNIP and quartile, this guide does not substitute third-party values for an official current database record. If your doctoral programme or promotion policy specifically requires Q1/Q2 status, retrieve the latest applicable category ranking directly from Scopus/SCImago or your institution’s subscribed database. Similarly, an Impact Factor should be verified in the current Clarivate Journal Citation Reports rather than inferred from CiteScore or from third-party metric sites.

What Article Types Does the Journal Publish?

The official Guide for Authors identifies three principal contribution types:

• Original articles: standard research papers of about 6,000 words, with tables, illustrations and references, in which hypotheses are tested and results are reported.
• Review articles: comprehensive reviews, usually up to 12,000 words, with an extensive literature base, in-depth state-of-the-art analysis, future research challenges and a Methods section explaining how the review literature was selected.
• Letters to the Editor: shorter contributions that clarify or respond to published material or raise questions relevant to the journal’s mandate and future direction.

The aims-and-scope page also describes short communications, discussion articles, viewpoints and critical perspectives among the forms of communication the journal welcomes. Authors should select the submission type that best matches the current Editorial Manager options rather than relying only on descriptive labels in the scope statement.

How Does the Journal Screen Manuscripts Before Peer Review?

All submissions are pre-evaluated for suitability. A distinctive CLPL requirement is the cover letter: authors are asked to explain four aspects of the research, with a maximum of 80 words for each response.

1. How does the article address an emerging topic in cleaner production and sustainability?
2. How does the research approach integrate an inter-, multi- or transdisciplinary perspective?
3. How do the outcomes enable positive, high societal impact and significance?
4. How does the paper relate to other work: does it align, extend or conflict? Authors are asked to identify two to four papers demonstrating that impact.

This screening requirement offers a practical way to self-test fit. If a research team cannot answer these four questions clearly and with evidence, the manuscript may need reframing or a different journal.

What Manuscript Requirements Should Authors Prepare For?

Elsevier requires editable source files for the full submission. Word manuscripts should use a single-column layout, while double-column formatting is permitted for LaTeX. A PDF alone is not accepted as the source manuscript. The title page should contain the article title, author names in submission order, complete affiliations and corresponding-author details.

The abstract must be concise and factual and should not exceed 250 words. The journal requires 1–7 English keywords. Highlights are encouraged as a separate editable file, normally 3–5 bullets with a maximum of 85 characters per bullet. A graphical abstract is encouraged rather than universally mandatory.

Articles should be divided into clearly defined, numbered sections and subsections. The guide also asks for a glossary of field-specific terms, sparing use of footnotes, acknowledgements before the references, and a CRediT contributor statement. Funding sources and competing interests must be disclosed. References do not need a rigid house style at initial submission as long as they are complete and internally consistent; the publisher applies the journal style later in production.

What Is Known About Peer Review and Publication Time?

Cleaner Production Letters follows a single-anonymized peer-review process. Editors first assess whether a manuscript is suitable. If it passes that stage, it is typically sent to at least two independent reviewers for scientific assessment, and the editors make the final acceptance or rejection decision.

Elsevier’s currently indexed journal-insights page reports 9 days from submission to first decision, 65 days from submission to a decision after review, 165 days from submission to acceptance, and 3 days from acceptance to online publication. These are publisher-reported journal statistics, not promises for an individual manuscript. Review rounds, editor availability, reviewer recruitment, revisions and author response times can make a particular paper substantially faster or slower.

The journal does not publicly state an acceptance rate in the authoritative sources reviewed for this guide, so no acceptance percentage should be inferred.

Is Cleaner Production Letters Open Access, and What Does It Cost?

Cleaner Production Letters is an open-access journal. Articles are made openly available on ScienceDirect. An article publishing charge applies after acceptance unless an agreement, waiver or other eligible arrangement changes the amount payable.

Authors should verify the price immediately before submission. Elsevier’s currently indexed journal page shows a full APC of USD 1,590 excluding taxes, while DOAJ’s record, last fully reviewed on 27 April 2026, lists publication fees of up to USD 1,620 and notes that a waiver policy exists. The discrepancy is exactly why APCs should be checked on the official Elsevier payment information at the time of submission rather than copied from an older guide.

What Publication-Ethics Policies Apply?

The journal follows Elsevier’s publishing-ethics policies. Submission implies that the work has not been published previously except in permitted forms such as a preprint, abstract, thesis or registered report; that it is not under consideration elsewhere; and that all authors and relevant institutional authorities approve the submission.

Authors must make substantial contributions, approve the final version and be accountable for the work. Competing interests and funding must be declared. The guide also contains policies on authorship changes, inclusive language, sex- and gender-based analyses where relevant, jurisdictional claims and preprints.

Use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation must be declared when applicable, with the author retaining responsibility for the content. Basic grammar, spelling and reference-checking tools do not require the same declaration under the guide. Elsevier also states that reviewers and editors are not currently permitted to use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT in peer review or manuscript evaluation because of confidentiality and author-rights concerns.

What Are the Research-Data Expectations?

The journal applies Elsevier’s research-data Option B guidance. Authors are encouraged to deposit data in a relevant repository, cite and link the dataset in the article, and explain when sharing is not possible. A data-availability statement is also encouraged at submission.

For empirical work, good publication readiness therefore includes checking whether datasets, code, models, protocols or supplementary materials can be shared ethically and legally. Where human, commercial or confidential data cannot be deposited, the manuscript should explain the limitation clearly rather than imply unrestricted availability.

How Can You Decide Whether Your Manuscript Fits?

A strong CLPL candidate usually does more than mention sustainability. It should make an identifiable cleaner-production or sustainable-development contribution, address an emerging problem, use an integrative perspective and explain why the findings matter beyond the immediate case.

• Can you state the cleaner-production or sustainability problem in one or two sentences?
• Is the paper’s novelty emerging or disruptive enough for the journal’s stated positioning?
• Does the methodology connect multiple disciplines, systems or stakeholder perspectives where appropriate?
• Can you show a credible pathway to societal, environmental, organisational or policy significance?
• Can you name two to four recent papers that your study clearly extends, challenges or complements?
• Would a reader outside your narrow subdiscipline understand why the findings matter?

If most answers are weak, a more specialist journal may be a better match even if the paper is scientifically sound.

Common Reasons a Manuscript May Be Unsuitable

Based on the journal’s stated scope and screening questions, likely fit problems include a manuscript that is too specialised for a narrow audience; sustainability is mentioned but not integrated into the research question; the societal significance is asserted rather than demonstrated; the paper lacks interdisciplinary or systems context; novelty is incremental rather than connected to an emerging frontier; or the authors cannot position the work against recent relevant literature.

This is editorial interpretation of the published scope, not a list of official rejection codes. Editorial decisions remain manuscript-specific.

Pre-Submission Checklist for Cleaner Production Letters

How to Prepare a Stronger Journal-Aligned Manuscript

As a practical publication-readiness step, compare your manuscript with several recent CLPL papers in the same theme. Look beyond topic similarity: examine how published authors frame novelty, connect methods to sustainability outcomes, explain cross-disciplinary relevance and articulate implications. This is general publication guidance rather than an additional rule imposed by the journal.

Then revise the manuscript so the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and conclusion tell the same contribution story. For CLPL in particular, the journal’s four cover-letter questions can be used as an internal diagnostic. If the 80-word answer to societal impact sounds stronger than the evidence in the Results and Discussion, the manuscript probably needs more explicit analysis rather than more persuasive wording.

How Contentxprtz Can Support Publication Readiness

Contentxprtz can support researchers with journal publication services, manuscript assessment, academic editing, proofreading, journal formatting, reference and citation checks, cover-letter refinement and reviewer-response editing. Support should strengthen clarity, consistency, journal alignment and ethical presentation while preserving the researcher’s ownership of the study and conclusions.

Contentxprtz does not control editorial decisions and cannot guarantee acceptance, peer-review success, indexing or publication. Final responsibility for the research, evidence, authorship, declarations and submission remains with the authors.

Authoritative Links for Final Verification

• Cleaner Production Letters — official ScienceDirect journal page
• Cleaner Production Letters — official Guide for Authors
• Cleaner Production Letters — journal insights, metrics and timelines
• Scopus source profile — Source ID 21101194575
• DOAJ record — ISSN 2666-7916
• ISSN Portal record