COVID-19 pandemic has shown that sustainable development of energy, water and environment systems is essential for the basic life needs of humankind. Logistics problems, shortage of resources and goods, a crisis of traditional energy systems, all these COVID-19 caused problems show that available resources should be used with caution. This paper is an introduction article to the Virtual Special Issue that discusses some of the latest developments in three research topic areas, namely Energy, Water and Environment. These research topics emerged from the four Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Conferences held in 2020. The purpose of the introduction article is to provide a brief introduction to the field and the articles included in this Journal of Cleaner Production Virtual Special Issue.

Sustainable Process Integration Laboratory SPIL NETME Centre Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Brno University of Technology VUT Brno Technická 2896 2 616 69 Brno Czech Republic

University of Zagreb Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture Zagreb Croatia

University of Zagreb Faculty of Metallurgy Aleja Narodnih Heroja 3 44000 Sisak Croatia

West Virginia University Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Morgantown WV USA

Xi'an Jiaotong University Department of Thermal Engineering Xi'an Shaanxi China

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