Publication Ethics Policies

The Journal of Green Construction Technology  is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, research integrity, transparency, and editorial independence. The Journal expects authors, reviewers, editors, and other participants in the publication process to act honestly, responsibly, and professionally.

This policy applies to all manuscripts and published content, including research articles, review articles, technical papers, case studies, short communications, methodological papers, special-issue submissions, and other scholarly contributions.

The Journal follows established principles of responsible scholarly publishing and may refer suspected ethical or research-integrity concerns to appropriate institutional, professional, or publication-ethics bodies when necessary.

1. Editorial Integrity and Independence

Editorial decisions are based on the manuscript's relevance to the Journal, originality, methodological and technical quality, significance, clarity, and contribution to the field.

Editorial decisions must not be influenced by an author's nationality, gender, ethnicity, institutional affiliation, academic position, personal relationships, commercial interests, political views, or ability to pay publication charges.

Editors must maintain appropriate independence from the Journal's owners, sponsors, advertisers, and other commercial interests. No commercial relationship may determine whether a manuscript is accepted or rejected.

Editors and editorial staff must protect confidential information obtained through manuscript handling and must not use unpublished information for personal or professional advantage.

2. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that submitted work is:

original and accurately reported;
based on sound research and appropriate methodology;
properly documented and referenced;
free from fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and other forms of misconduct;
ethically conducted where applicable; and
submitted with the knowledge and approval of all listed authors.

Authors must provide sufficient methodological information to permit appropriate evaluation of the work and, where reasonably possible, reproduction or verification of computational, experimental, or modeling results.

Authors must promptly notify the Journal if a significant error is discovered in a submitted or published manuscript.

3. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship must reflect substantial intellectual or scholarly contribution to the research or manuscript.

Individuals who qualify as authors should have made meaningful contributions to areas such as conception, research design, methodology, investigation, data collection, analysis, modeling, experimentation, interpretation, software development, or manuscript preparation and critical revision.

All authors must approve the final manuscript and agree to its submission and publication.

For manuscripts involving multiple authors, one individual must be designated as the Corresponding Author. The Corresponding Author serves as the principal contact between the authors and Journal of Green Construction Technology throughout the editorial, peer-review, production, and publication processes. This author is responsible for, coordinating communication among all co-authors, responding to editorial and reviewer comments, ensuring that every co-author has approved the manuscript and any subsequent revisions, and confirming that all information provided during submission is accurate.

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged appropriately, with their permission.

Changes in Authorship

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must include an explanation and normally require confirmation from all affected authors. The Journal may suspend editorial processing until the matter is satisfactorily resolved.

Authorship disputes are normally the responsibility of the authors' institutions or relevant authorities rather than the Journal.

4. Originality, Plagiarism, Duplicate Publication and other Research Misconduct

Manuscripts must be original and must not be simultaneously submitted to another journal.

Authors must disclose relevant previous publications, conference papers, preprints, reports, datasets, or manuscripts containing substantially overlapping material.

Plagiarism includes presenting another person's words, ideas, data, figures, designs, models, algorithms, or other intellectual contributions as one's own without appropriate attribution. Similarity-detection tools may be used as part of the editorial assessment. A similarity score alone does not establish plagiarism; the context and nature of the overlap will be evaluated.

The Journal also considers the following research misconduct unacceptable:

fabrication or falsification of research;
inappropriate alteration or manipulation of images or results;
substantial text recycling without appropriate disclosure;
manipulation of experimental or field measurements;
fraudulent authorship;
deliberate concealment of relevant conflicts of interest;
manipulation of peer review;
inappropriate use of another researcher's confidential work; and
duplicate or redundant publication;
undisclosed republication of substantially similar material; and
inappropriate appropriation of another researcher's ideas or unpublished work.

Other serious breaches of research or publication integrity.

The above list is not exhaustive.

Where credible concerns arise, the Journal may request explanations, supporting documentation, original data, laboratory or field records, computational files, or other evidence necessary to assess the matter. Where appropriate, the Journal may refer the matter to the authors' institution, employer, funding body, professional organization, or another competent authority.

5. Research Transparency and Reproducibility

Authors should provide sufficient information about research methods, materials, datasets, computational procedures, models, software, and analytical techniques to permit meaningful evaluation of their work.

For studies involving computational modeling, simulation, building-performance analysis, life-cycle assessment, environmental assessment, optimization, or other computational approaches, authors should provide relevant information concerning software and computational methods. Where feasible and legally permissible, authors are encouraged to make supporting datasets, code, models, or supplementary materials available through appropriate repositories.

6. Environmental and Sustainability Claims

Because the Journal focuses on green construction technology, authors must ensure that environmental and sustainability claims are supported by appropriate evidence.

Claims concerning energy efficiency, carbon reduction, emissions, resource conservation, recyclability, circularity, environmental performance, sustainability, life-cycle impacts, or similar outcomes should be based on clearly described methods and appropriate evidence. Authors should avoid unsupported or exaggerated environmental claims, including claims that could constitute greenwashing. Where comparative environmental performance is reported, authors should clearly identify the baseline, system boundaries, assumptions, time period, data sources, and relevant limitations.

7. Research Data Policy and Data Availability Statements

The Journal of Green Construction Technology encourages the transparent sharing of research data to support the verification, interpretation, reproducibility, and further development of published findings. Data that substantively support a study’s results and conclusions should be made accessible to readers whenever possible, unless legitimate ethical, legal, confidentiality, or other justified restrictions apply.

Research data may be included in the manuscript or provided as supplementary files. Alternatively, datasets may be deposited in recognized public repositories, such as figshare or Dryad. Where applicable, persistent identifiers, including digital object identifiers (DOIs) or repository accession numbers, should be provided to facilitate reliable access and citation. Any restrictions on data access should be clearly explained.

As the Journal follows a double-blind peer-review process, data and supplementary materials supplied for reviewers’ assessment should not disclose the identities of the authors. Where necessary, appropriate anonymization measures or repository services that support blinded review should be used to preserve reviewer anonymity and maintain the integrity of the editorial process.

Authors are encouraged to include a Data Availability Statement in every submitted manuscript, specifying where the data supporting the reported findings can be accessed. Where relevant, the statement should include links to publicly available datasets, repository identifiers, or information on how access may be requested. If data cannot be shared publicly, the reasons should be stated clearly. Where no data were generated or analyzed, this should also be explicitly indicated, as appropriate.

The following formats may be used or adapted according to the circumstances of the research:

1. Publicly available data: “The datasets generated and/or analyzed during this study are available in the [repository name] repository at [persistent link or DOI].”
2. Restricted data available upon reasonable request: “The datasets generated and/or analyzed during this study are not publicly available due to [reason] but may be obtained from the corresponding author upon reasonable request, subject to applicable restrictions.”
3. Data available from the corresponding author: “The datasets generated and/or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.”
4. Data included in the article or supplementary files: “All data generated and/or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.”
5. No applicable research data: “No new data were generated or analyzed in this study.”

Authors should select the statement that accurately reflects their research and data-sharing arrangements. Where multiple datasets or different access conditions are involved, the statement may combine the relevant formats to provide a complete and transparent account of data availability.

8. Construction, Field, and Safety Considerations

Research involving construction sites, buildings, infrastructure, materials, workers, occupants, communities, or field experiments should be conducted in accordance with applicable safety, legal, institutional, and professional requirements. Authors should appropriately address relevant risks to workers, participants, occupants, communities, and the environment.

Where research involves human participants, personal information, surveys, interviews, or identifiable individuals, applicable ethical review and informed-consent requirements must be observed.

Where photographs, plans, site information, or other material could identify individuals, private property, restricted facilities, or sensitive locations, authors must obtain appropriate permission or anonymize the information where required.

9. Conflicts of Interest

Authors, reviewers, editors, and Guest Editors must disclose relationships or interests that could influence, or reasonably appear to influence, their judgment.

Potential conflicts may include financial interests; employment or consultancy relationships; commercial partnerships; ownership of relevant intellectual property; research funding; personal or professional relationships; institutional interests; competing research or commercial interests; and other circumstances that could create a reasonable perception of bias.

Disclosure of any conflict does not necessarily prevent publication or participation in peer review. The purpose of disclosure is to promote transparency and allow appropriate editorial management. A disclosure statement is required, even when no conflict of interest exists.

10. Funding and Sponsor Involvement

All financial and institutional support for the research should be disclosed.

Where applicable, authors should identify funding organizations; grant or project numbers; institutional support; commercial sponsorship; and the role of the funder or sponsor in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to submit the work. Commercial sponsorship must not compromise the authors' academic independence or the accuracy of reported findings.

11. Peer Review Ethics

The Journal uses a structured peer-review process designed to provide independent and constructive scholarly assessment. For further details see peer review policy and guidelines for peer review.

12. Editorial and Guest Editor Conflicts

Editors, Associate Editors, Editorial Board members, and Guest Editors must disclose relevant conflicts and recuse themselves from decisions where their independence may reasonably be questioned.

Manuscripts authored by editors or Guest Editors are handled by an independent editor. Special Issue manuscripts must meet the same standards of originality, research integrity, peer review, and editorial independence as regular submissions. Special Issue status must not provide a mechanism for bypassing normal editorial or ethical requirements.

13. Confidentiality

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal are confidential scholarly documents. Editors, reviewers, and editorial staff must not disclose manuscript content, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, or other confidential information to unauthorized persons. Confidential information obtained through the editorial process must not be used for personal, commercial, academic, or competitive advantage.

14. Artificial Intelligence and AI-Assisted Tools

Authors may use appropriate AI-assisted technologies for limited purposes such as language improvement, grammar correction, formatting, or similar editorial assistance. Substantive use of generative AI in research, analysis, interpretation, image generation, coding, or other aspects of manuscript preparation should be disclosed. AI tools must not be used to fabricate data, experimental results, environmental performance claims, references, citations, images, or other scholarly evidence. AI systems cannot be listed as authors. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and appropriate attribution of all submitted content.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts or unpublished material to AI systems where confidentiality cannot be assured. Editors and reviewers are responsible for their reviews and decisions and any responsibility cannot be rendered to AI tools.

15. Data, Images, Figures, and Digital Material

Research data, photographs, construction-site images, charts, diagrams, satellite or mapping material, building plans, and other visual or digital content must be presented accurately. Authors must not manipulate images or graphical material in a manner that misrepresents the underlying evidence. Where image processing is necessary, it should not remove, add, or alter information in a misleading manner. Third-party material must be appropriately attributed, and permission must be obtained where required.

16. Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Permissions

Authors are responsible for ensuring that they have the necessary rights to submit all components of a manuscript. Permission should be obtained for copyrighted figures, tables, photographs, substantial text, building plans, proprietary datasets, or other protected material where required.

The Journal's copyright and licensing arrangements apply to accepted and published articles.  

17. Preprints and Prior Dissemination

Authors should disclose whether a manuscript or substantially similar version has previously appeared as a preprint, conference paper, technical report, institutional publication, or other publicly accessible document. Prior dissemination does not automatically constitute duplicate publication. The Editor will assess the nature and extent of overlap and determine whether the submission remains eligible for consideration. Any relevant prior version should be appropriately cited.

18. Corrections, Post-Publication Amendments and investigations

Authors have an ongoing responsibility to report significant errors discovered after publication. Minor errors that do not materially affect the article may be corrected through an appropriate correction notice or updated version.  Where an error materially affects the interpretation, reliability, or conclusions of an article, the Journal will determine whether a correction, editorial notice, or other action is required. Corrections should clearly identify the affected article and describe the relevant changes. Established publication guidance recognizes corrections as appropriate for honest errors and retraction where errors are sufficiently serious to invalidate results or conclusions. Authors, reviewers, editors, and institutions are expected to cooperate reasonably with legitimate investigations concerning research or publication integrity. Where necessary, the Journal may request original data, research records, correspondence, ethical approvals, authorship confirmations, reviewer information, or other documentation relevant to an investigation.

18.1 Retraction

An article may be retracted when there is substantial evidence that the findings are unreliable because of major error; data or results were fabricated or falsified; substantial plagiarism or duplicate publication is established; serious ethical violations occurred; there was fraudulent manipulation of the publication process; or another circumstance seriously compromises the integrity of the published record.

A retraction does not necessarily imply misconduct where the underlying problem resulted from an honest but serious error. The Journal will maintain an appropriate connection between a retraction notice and the original article to preserve the integrity and transparency of the scholarly record.

18.2 Expressions of Concern

Where serious concerns exist but an investigation has not yet been completed, or available evidence is insufficient to reach a final conclusion, the Journal may publish an Expression of Concern. Such a notice may be used to alert readers while the relevant investigation or clarification is undertaken.

19. Publication Manipulation and Peer-Review Fraud

The Journal considers manipulation of the publication process a serious ethical violation. This may include fabricated reviewer identities; false reviewer email addresses; organized or manipulated reviewing; fraudulent authorship; citation manipulation; coercive citation practices; submission of fabricated or altered documents; manipulation of editorial communications; or attempts to circumvent the Journal's peer-review procedures. Where such concerns arise, the Journal may suspend processing, reject the manuscript, investigate the matter, or take post-publication action where necessary.

20. Citation Ethics

Authors should cite relevant literature accurately and for legitimate scholarly reasons. The following practices are discouraged or prohibited:

excessive self-citation without scholarly justification;
coordinated citation arrangements;
irrelevant citations intended to increase citation counts;
coercive citation;
citation of sources that have not been consulted; and
deliberate omission of relevant work to create a misleading impression of originality.

Editors and reviewers must not require authors to add citations merely to increase the citations of the Journal, editor, reviewer, or particular authors.

21. Corrections to Authorship and Contributor Information

Requests to correct author names, affiliations, contribution statements, or other authorship information after publication will be considered where supported by appropriate evidence. Substantive changes to authorship generally require confirmation from all affected authors and may require institutional involvement where a dispute exists. The Journal may publish an authorship correction or other appropriate notice when warranted.

22. Complaints and Appeals

The Journal provides authors and other stakeholders with a mechanism for raising legitimate concerns regarding editorial decisions, peer review, publication procedures, or ethical matters. Complaints and appeals should provide the manuscript or article concerned; the nature of the complaint; relevant evidence or documentation; and the specific action or clarification requested.

Appeals concerning editorial judgment should identify a substantive procedural, ethical, or factual basis rather than simply disagreement with the decision. Complaints concerning research misconduct may be investigated separately from ordinary editorial appeals. The decision of the journal after proper investigations are generally considered final.

23. Diversity, Equity, and Respect

The Journal supports a professional publication environment free from discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and abusive conduct. Authors, reviewers, editors, and staff should communicate respectfully and professionally regardless of nationality, gender, ethnicity, institutional affiliation, career stage, or other personal or professional characteristics. Manuscripts should use appropriate and respectful terminology and avoid unnecessary stereotyping or discriminatory representations.

24. Ethical Oversight and External Consultation

Where a matter cannot be resolved through the Journal's normal editorial procedures, the Journal may seek advice from appropriate external bodies, including authors' institutions, research organizations, professional bodies, funders, legal authorities, or recognized publication-ethics organizations. The Journal may take appropriate action based on the available evidence while respecting confidentiality and procedural fairness.

25. Commitment to an Accurate Scholarly Record

The Journal of Green Construction Technology is committed to maintaining a reliable, transparent, and trustworthy scholarly record. The Journal recognizes that responsible publishing requires cooperation among authors, reviewers, editors, publishers, institutions, and readers. Ethical concerns will therefore be considered seriously and addressed proportionately, with the objective of protecting the integrity of the research record and the interests of the scholarly community. The Journal may update this policy when publication-ethics standards, research practices, or relevant scholarly guidance evolve.

26. Commercial Interests, Advertising, and Sponsored Content

The journal currently does not publish sponsored, commissioned, or commercially supported content. If such activity start in future the nature of the relationship and relevant sponsorship will be transparently identified and Commercial relationships, advertising, sponsorship, industry partnerships, or other commercial arrangements will be kept separated from editorial decisions. And will not determine which manuscripts are accepted or rejected. Scientific content will remain subject to the Journal's normal editorial and ethical standards.