Sustainable Total Productive Maintenance (STPM) arose in 2021 as a promising, new concept to fill the lack of sustainability in Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and allow companies to overcome its implementation barriers. It revolves around increasing the understanding of the systems approach and contributing to setting contemporary companies’ sustainable ideology by supporting orientation toward sustainability from a sustainable maintenance perspective. However, STPM is still in its infancy and is viewed as a complement to the traditional TPM approach and is based on its pillars. Moreover, there is still a dearth of literature discussing STPM. This study aims to present STPM as a novel substitute for TPM while building its unique mechanism based on re-engineered fourth generation management (R4thGM). To pursue such a goal, 94 papers from Scopus, Web of Science, and Science Direct databases published in 2008–2023 were reviewed. This study’s novelty comes from presenting STPM as the best-suited lean manufacturing and sustainability strategy for enhancing sustainable maintenance, encouraging contemporary maintenance (i.e., Industry 4.0 technology-based sustainable maintenance), and supporting second-era contemporary companies’ orientation toward sustainability. Furthermore, based on recent studies, propositions are formulated to achieve STPM. Finally, research implications and future directions are presented.

Re-engineered fourth-generation management (R4thGM) emerged in 2022 as an innovative systems approach to make production systems more contemporary (e.g., more sustainable and open to diverse stakeholders), while complex system governance (CSG), as a systems approach, enables the control, coordination, communication, and integration of smart energy systems. However, there remains a lack of literature: (i) discussing how R4thGM, integrated energy system (IES) governance (as CSG), artificial intelligence (AI), advanced simulation, robust optimization methods, and stakeholders should be taken into account in the task of enhancing IES’s resilience and sustainability, particularly against extreme natural events; (ii) discussing the role of IES governance in enhancing control, coordination, integration, and communication of IES infrastructures; (iii) emphasizing the role of R4thGM for enhancing the resilience and sustainability of an IES; (iv) presenting an integrated energy meta-system (IEM) resulting from IES governance and relying on three technical enablers, i.e., (resilience) robust optimization, AI, and advanced simulation methods. This study aims to propose a novel integrative systems approach based on R4thGM and IES governance, using AI, advanced simulation, and optimization methods to enhance the resilience and sustainability of IES infrastructures in the design and operational phases. To achieve this goal, we have reviewed 85 Scopus- and Web of Science-indexed papers published in 2017–2025. The novelty of this study lies in presenting an integrative systems approach best suited to resilient and sustainable IES infrastructures against extreme natural hazards. Moreover, propositions are formulated to reflect on the suggested framework. Finally, research implications and future directions are provided.

Polycentric governance enables decentralized yet coherent multilevel decision-making by fostering alignment across governance, policy, and strategic goals. In the United States (U.S.), a prominent global climate actor, this polycentric structure is being tested. An Executive Order issued on 8 April 2025, opens the possibility to stop the enforcement of state-level laws that might condition the exploitation of energy resources based on considerations concerning climate change and the environment. This federal action might disrupt subnational efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate impacts, exposing a misalignment between federal and state climate governance—a dynamic that remains underexplored in the existing literature. This critical mini-review article proposes a novel conceptual framework that presents this misalignment between federal and state climate perspectives as an emerging meta-system pathology in U.S. climate governance, introducing the concept of perspective desalignment. Drawing on the analysis of 73 Web of Science papers and a review of 16 journal articles published in 2018–2025, this study highlights the breakdown of shared understanding and strategic coherence among key stakeholders, including federal and state governments, industry, and academia. The findings underscore that any effective climate governance will require federal–state realignment. The paper concludes with implications and recommendations for restoring alignment and enabling more effective, collaborative climate governance.

System of Systems Engineering (SoSE) is an emerging discipline focused on the design, integration, and evolution of metasystems—composed of multiple autonomous yet interdependent systems. These systems of systems (SoS) offer capabilities that exceed those of any individual constituent systems by enabling synergistic coordination, interoperability, and dynamic adaptation across diverse operational contexts. This study pursued three primary objectives: (i) to examine the role of integration in enabling emergent capabilities beyond those of individual systems, (ii) to explore SoSE as a framework for orchestrating Future Factory-to-Factory (F2F) Manufacturing, and (iii) to assess the implications of SoSE to address volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) manufacturing environments. Data for this study were drawn from the Web of Science Core Collection—a globally recognized citation database that informs research evaluation and planning across more than 7000 institutions. Our analysis revealed that SoSE is gaining importance as a unifying paradigm for managing enhanced capability of complex, distributed systems characterized by operational and managerial independence, evolutionary development, and emergent behaviors. Findings indicated persistent challenges across technical, operational, economic, governance, and strategic domains, underscoring the need for holistic integration strategies. In the context of Future F2F Manufacturing, SoSE holds a significant promise for enhancing system-wide coordination, resilience, and adaptability. The study concludes by emphasizing the importance of embedding Systems Theory principles to guide the sustainable and scalable integration of interconnected manufacturing ecosystems to maintain viability.