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1. General Ethics Policies

The publication of peer-reviewed articles in agreement with the following rules of “Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement” is an essential model for the Journal of Environmental Accounting and Management (JEAM).

It is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviors for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher. Our ethics statements for Journal Editors are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf) and Ethics Approval and Informed Consent Statements Guidelines.

The complete document for editor guidelines of Ethics Approval and Informed Consent Statements includes the following items.

• Editor and Author responsibilities,
• Appropriate ethics approval and informed consent/animal welfare statements
• Requesting additional information from authors

The corresponding complete document can be downloaded at Ethics Approval and Informed Consent Statements

2. Ethics Policies for Editors

The editor of JEAM is responsible for making a decision whether the articles submitted to the journal should be published or rejected. The editor duties should be guided by the bylaws of JEAM editorial policies and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with associate editors and/or reviewers in making this decision. The following Ethics policies and guidelines are for editors and associate editors to follow.

• During evaluation of manuscripts, the editor at any time should be equally and fairly for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
• The editor and any staff in the editorial office must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone instead of the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other associate editors, and the publisher.
• Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research.

3. Ethics Policies for Reviewers

Peer-review helps the editor in making editorial decisions and may also help the author in improving quality of the paper through the editorial communications with the author. The following ethics policies and professional responsibilities are for reviewers to follow.

• Any selected referee giving prompt responses are very important no matter how s/he feels qualified or unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript. The prompt and serious review process causes the editor to efficiently make an editorial decision.
• Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents which cannot be shown to or discussed with others except.
• Reviews should be conducted objectively, and personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
• Reviewers should identify relevant published work not cited by the authors. Any statement on a previously reported observation, derivation, or argument should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should report to the editor any substantial similarity or overlap between the full and partial manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge. However, during the review process, the reviewers’ own research work being suggested to be cited should be avoided.
• Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

4. Ethics Policies for Authors

Authors should follow the bylaws of editorial policies and practices to prepare manuscripts for submission. Authors should use an accurate way to present the original research work in manuscripts with an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data and the corresponding results should be represented accurately repeatably in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Authors can be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. The corresponding author should check the submission checklist to satisfy the journal requirement and ethics requirements. Therefore, the following ethics policies are for authors to follow.

• The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. The detailed descriptions can be found from the bylaw of the editorial policies and practices.
• An author should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal or other publications concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior.
• Proper citations of the work of others must always be given. Authors should properly cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Such influence should be described in the manuscript.
• Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study.
  1. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Others participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.
  2. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
  3. Once a manuscript is accepted, the order of authorship cannot be changed.
• If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript. For more detailed information please refer to Ethics Approval and Informed Consent Statements
• All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
• When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly inform the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.