The ‘Environment and Society’ Package
Interdisciplinary research on environment and society.
• Six high quality open access journals.
• Option to include ‘Environment and History’, our flagship hybrid title, for significant savings.
• Opening access to new scholarship through S2O and similar models.
• Additional benefits (reduced price, OA Publish Guarantee, backset access etc.).
• All journals can be supported via individual subscriptions, or as a bundle.
• Published by a small, fully independent family-run press.
Introduction
The White Horse Press is a small independent publisher specialising in environment and society. We are pleased to offer a package of six (or seven) scholarly journals on environment and society. The package includes established journals of strong reputation alongside newer titles that support emerging interdisciplinary communities. Exploring interests across history, the social sciences and the humanities, all the journals in the package share a preoccupation with how society and the environment interact and feed back on one another.
The White Horse Press is committed to reducing and removing barriers to access for the material we publish. After all, the best, latest thought on environment and society is relevant to, literally, everyone. We are therefore aiming for full immediate open access on six of our journals, with no author fees; while offering more affordable access to our one hybrid journal, for those who want it.
The 2027 Package
The White Horse Press Environment and Society Package is available for a third year, now with a choice between two online-only configurations. This year there are options for six or seven titles, compared with only four in 2026; pricing reflects the larger package size while applying a *reduction* in price per title.
Environment and Society Package – OA Focus
A mixed model package that includes six high quality journals seeking subscription support to remain sustainably open access without author fees.
Environment and Society Package – Complete
The six ‘OA Focus’ journals (same as above), but now also including our flagship title Environment and History, which remains hybrid.
The full title list is as follows:
| Title | ISSN | OA Focus Package | Complete Package |
| East of the Elbe | 2979-3262 | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Environment and History | 0967-3407 | ✕ | ✔️ |
| Global Environment | 1973-3739 | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| The Journal of Population & Sustainability | 2398-5488 | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Nomadic Peoples | 0822-7942 | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Plant Perspectives | 2753-3603 | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Worldwide Waste | 2399-7117 | ✔️ | ✔️ |
With your support, we aim to keep all six OA titles open access in 2027 and beyond. Environment and History will remain hybrid for now, but subscribers to either package option are eligible for reduced APCs in that title.
Open Access Models
Three of our open access journals run on a Subscribe to Open basis; two on a mixed subscription model based on Projekt KOALA grants; and one is diamond. Environment and History (in the Complete package only) is hybrid with a Green OA option.
Subscribe to Open:
We are offering three of the package journals on a Subscribe to Open basis (Nomadic Peoples, Plant Perspectives, and our brand new title East of the Elbe: Environment and Society in Central and Eastern Europe). If we achieve a set revenue target for the year for any of these journals, its 2027 volume will become fully and permanently Open Access under a CC BY license. Should we fail to reach the revenue threshold for 2027, the 2027 volume will remain gated (available to all those who subscribed, but not others) and we’ll try again in 2028. Revenue thresholds will be set for each journal individually. Individual subscriptions and bundled subscriptions will all count towards the threshold. Author fees will only ever apply in cases where the volume remains gated, but the author nevertheless wishes to make their own article OA.
Please see our Ethics Statement for more detail on how we implement Subscribe-to-Open in an equitable way.
Mixed Model with Projekt KOALA:
Global Environment and Worldwide Waste are offered on a mixed model that includes grant support from Projekt KOALA, which covers part but not all of the production costs. We are already committed to publishing these two titles open access (CC BY) and APC-free in 2027, as a condition of securing the KOALA support – but since the KOALA support is not enough to cover costs and is not confirmed beyond 2027, we are still seeking seeking support from subscribers (who benefit from access to gated backset content) as a way to cover the remaining production costs and ensure the long term financial viability of these two journals.
- Projekt KOALA is a consortial open access financing mechanism for APC-free scholarly journals.
- KOALA supports Global Environment and Worldwide Waste as part of a wider themed multi-press package.
- Libraries participating in KOALA may choose whether to support these two titles via KOALA or subscriptions; we do not expect anyone to support via both channels simultaneously and we will work with KOALA to ensure full transparency about the parallel offers.
- This applies ONLY to Global Environment and Worldwide Waste, not any other titles.
Diamond OA:
We also list our one diamond title, The Journal of Population and Sustainability, in both packages. This title is funded annually by a donor organisation, but their contribution is no longer sufficient to develop the journal adequately or safeguard its open access status for the longer run. Package subscriptions will thus help support this title too, albeit at a lower priority for allocation than the other titles.
Hybrid with Green OA (in the Complete package only):
Environment and History remains hybrid, with OA publication possible through payment of an APC (at a reduced rate for package subscribers), and with a Green OA option allowing open access deposit of the author accepted manuscript in a repository. We hope to move this title to a fully open access model in future, but the risk in doing so at present is too great. Uptake levels for the ‘Complete’ package will help us re-calibrate our risk assessment in future years.
In both its configurations, the Environment and Society Package is thus a mixed model approach to ensuring sustainable Open Access outcomes across six important journals. The Complete package includes all journals published by The White Horse Press and incorporates a substantial discount against the single-title subscription price for Environment and History.
Benefits to Subscribers
Open Access Guarantee
Package subscribers enjoy an open access guarantee in Nomadic Peoples, Plant Perspectives, and East of the Elbe. This means any corresponding author from your institution who has their article accepted during the subscribed year will be guaranteed to have that article published OA at no extra cost, even if we fail to meet the revenue threshold to unlock the entire volume. (Open access publishing is automatically guaranteed in Global Environment, Worldwide Waste and The Journal of Population and Sustainability.)
APC Discount in ‘Environment and History’
Package subscribers receive discounted rates for APCs in our one hybrid journal, Environment and History:
- Full price: GBP £1,800
- OA Focus subscribers: £1,600
- Complete Package subscribers: £1,400
Other Benefits and Considerations
- Guaranteed permanent access to the journals’ full output in the subscribed year.
- Guaranteed term-limited access to the journals’ entire backsets, where applicable.
- Access is available to libraries via all the usual subscription agents, in the normal way.
- Journals are preserved in Portico and LOCKSS.
- All journals are indexed in DOAJ (or will be once content is published, for East of the Elbe).
- White Horse Press is an OASPA member and committed to making a full Open Access transition, for the benefit of all.
The Journals
East of the Elbe: Environment and Society in Central and Eastern Europe (ISSN 2979-3262)
This is a new peer-reviewed, open access forum for the environmental history of East-Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern/Balkan Europe and The Baltic region. Comparative studies engaging multiple regions or connecting CEE to broader European/global environmental histories will also be welcomed.
Model: Subscribe to Open.
Environment and History (ISSN 0967-3407) [in the ‘Complete’ package only]
This is an interdisciplinary journal that aims to bring scholars in the humanities and natural sciences closer together, with the deliberate intention of constructing long and well-founded perspectives on past and present day environmental problems.
Model: Hybrid with Green OA.
Global Environment: A Journal of Transdisciplinary History (ISSN 2053-7352)
This is a forum and echo chamber for studies on the environment and world history, transcending the western-centric and ‘developist’ bias that has dominated international environmental historiography so far and favouring the emergence of spatially and culturally diversified points of view.
Model: Confirmed OA due to KOALA grant, but seeking to cover remaining costs and ensure the journal’s long-term sustainability through subscriber support. Gated backset available only to subscribers.
The Journal of Population & Sustainability (ISSN 2398-5488)
The Journal of Population and Sustainability (JP&S) is the only “Diamond” Open Access interdisciplinary journal exploring all aspects of the relationship between human populations and environmental sustainability. While at the most general level the JP&S is concerned with the relationship between human population dynamics and environmental sustainability, it is a forum for wider discussion of the nexus between population, consumption, technology and environmental change.
Model: Diamond OA due to Population Matters grant, but seeking to cover remaining costs and ensure the journal’s long-term sustainability through subscriber support.
Nomadic Peoples (ISSN 1752-2366)
This journal’s primary concerns are the current circumstances of all nomadic peoples around the world and their prospects. It engages with a wide variety of pastoralist and nomadic societies, often in the Global South, and offers incisive and policy-relevant analysis of their ways of life.
Model: Subscribe to Open.
Plant Perspectives (ISSN 2753-3603)
This new journal is a forum, grounded in interdisciplinary plant studies, to explore plant–human interactions in all spatial, temporal and cultural contexts. Taking ‘environmental humanities’ as its foundation, Plant Perspectives is a place where scholars and practitioners with an interest in plants can develop and hone new thinking and where – crucially – the plant itself is always centre stage.
Model: Subscribe to Open.
Worldwide Waste (ISSN 2399-7117)
This is an interdisciplinary journal presenting innovative research on waste from around the world. It critically interrogates the cultural, social, economic and political systems within which waste is created, managed and circulated. The White Horse Press began publishing Worldwide Waste in 2024, with no reliance on APCs.
Model: Confirmed OA due to KOALA grant, but seeking to cover remaining costs and ensure the journal’s long-term sustainability through subscriber support. Gated backset available only to subscribers.
Pricing
Environment and Society Package 2027 – OA FOCUS: GBP £1,050 / €1,215 / $1,415
Environment and Society Package 2027 – COMPLETE: GBP £1,300 / €1,505 / $1,750
Journals subscribed under the S2O bundle cost approximately 12 per cent less than the same content bought at individual 2027 prices. Ordering information is here.
More About The White Horse Press
We are small independent publishers specialising in environment and society. We take pride in our rigorous academic standards and in offering our authors intelligent, flexible and individual treatment from editors with academic backgrounds and writing experience. Our small size gives us agility to navigate the changing publishing landscape, and freedom to define our own publication agenda.
We are now working hard to move towards a fully Open Access business model. Opening access to all our publications, as well as being the right thing to do, will help boost the profile of our publications and help our authors to be read and cited more widely. We are proud to be members of OASPA, members of the Open Book Collective, and participants in the Subscribe to Open Community of Practice.
For more information about White Horse Press, you can watch our video or read more here.