Retraction Notice to “Decarbonizing Europe. A critical review on positive energy districts approaches” [Sustainable Cities and Society 89 (2023) 104356]

Abstract

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (https://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).

We reached an agreement to retract the paper as the author's explanation is insufficient and some additional issues have been identified, which reaffirm the decision:

These image issues were apparent from a brief search and the list is unlikely to be complete. There is some textual overlap with a contemporaneous publication by the same first author (https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/23/15812/html), various EU documents (e.g. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC121405), and other papers (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103013 also published in SCS several years earlier). These issues are less obvious than the image issues, and in some cases are improper citation style rather than plagiarism (there is a citation, but it is not clear that the referenced work is being directly quoted).The author proposed to obtain permissions from the publications, but it is not likely to be acceptable as the complainant is the author of the infringed publication and they requested to retract the paper.

Fig 4, references hedman 2021, but directly reproduces figure 1 from that reference (https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/11/3/130) – the author then uses the figure again in another paper (https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/23/15812/html).

Fig 5 reproduces figure 3 from the cited paper (https://www.bpie.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/OpenLab-Positive-Energy-Neighbourhoods_9.pdf).

Fig 6 as noted in the complaint reproduces figure 2 from (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032121010510#fig2).

Fig 7 cites a reference but insufficient detail is given to find the document.

Figure 9 reproduces figure 4 from Krangsas et al 2021 without citation (original at https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910551).

Figure 12 is a partial reproduction of figure 5 of the referenced article (https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/6083) with an annotation superimposed still bearing the red line from office's spellchecker.