The Ecological Criteria of Circular Growth and the Rebound Risk of Closed Loops
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is interesting and well-structured.
Few changes are required to make it suitable for acceptance.
Please avoid lumping references, couple each statement or findings to one source to make the readers able to go further in research if interested and to identify who the results belong to.
Some comments in the general context should be done to the building sector and to urban environment before focusing on industrial production. See established studies like https://0-www-sciencedirect-com.brum.beds.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S136403211830501X https://0-www-sciencedirect-com.brum.beds.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S0959652618316408
Please check some English spell
Author Response
Dear Reviewer1,
Thank you for your cooperation in reviewing our article. We understand that you have found the multiple literature sources at single statements a bit confusing. Normally, we believe that the more contribution it receives, the stronger a statement stands in scientific terms. However, we have reconsidered the parts of our article where we have used more than two sources per statement (e.g. Line 55, Line 84, Line 103, Line 120, and Lines 359-360). In these cases, we have either left the two most relevant sources to the actual statement or distributed the sources among the certain statements of the actual train of thought. The only exception appears in Line 29 where we refer to “many researchers” which indicate the review on several studies. Moreover, we have added several sources in Line 156 where we show the description of the applied indicators.
We have also considered the additional literature sources you have recommended. We have inserted the first one in the Introduction (while describing the rebound effect) by reflecting on the matter you have highlighted. There is truly a relevance of distinguishing industrial and consumer patterns regarding the rebound effect. Although our article focuses on the former, we have added a general note to acknowledge the importance of the latter (Lines 88-91). We have found your other literature quite useful as well. It stresses the importance of considering environmental impacts in circular transitions which contributes to a statement we emphasize in the Discussion. Thus, we have included that source as well (Lines 377-378).
Please find all these changes marked with the colour of red. The paper has also received a final language check and the minor modifications are also highlighted.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper "The ecological criteria of circular growth and the rebound risk of closed loops" is a well written paper about the relationships between material use, waste generation, resource productivity and circular economy. I recommend this paper for publication in Sustainability. Before, I would like from the authors to provide more information about how and from where the data was collected. Especially, taking into account that 28 EU countries may have very different methodologies for the collection and interpretation of this data. Some other comments that the authors may find useful are:
In step 1 of your research design method, you exclude 6 EU member states for showing outlying results. Please comment on the possible causes for this 6 outlying countries. Why did you exclude them from further analysis rather than grouping them into a separate category? How far away are these 6 countries from the general trends shown in the results?
Where is the data collected from? Please add references or internet links for all the data categories. Please comment on the reliability of the data, in the way that 28 EU states may have different methodologies for data collection or even incomplete data.
In equation (2) you use the circular material use (CMU), which is in fact an index. Why you do not use another name for this, for example circular material index (CMI), moreover CMU is very similar to circular use of material (U).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer2,
Thank you for your cooperation in reviewing our article. We understand that you wanted to see a clearer description of certain research design elements. Concerning the data collection, we have added the sources of certain indicators in Table 1. That also explains that the data have been collected through the universal methods of Eurostat which prevents the distortion of the analysis.
Regarding the exclusion of the outliers, we have added a description in the Results section (Lines 189-193).
We also understand your confusion regarding the name of the “Circular material use”. We have also modified the related parts of the article to be more accurate and we have used the full name of “Circular material use rate”. This name in equation 2 shows that the “CMU” is the rate of circular material use and the “U” is the amount itself.
Please find all these changes marked with the colour of red. The paper has also received a final language check and the minor modifications are also highlighted.
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper analyses the hypothesis that in implementation practices of the circular economy (CE) the preference of closed loops would result in deadweight losses in the long run, ranking EU member states according to the most anticipated material flow indicators, and then presenting a new methodology to measure circular efficiency based on the available ecological capacity of the countries, obtaining as a result that the poor performing actors are in fact not far from a sustainable operation, while the countries with the most efficient material flow values present the widest development gap to reach the ideal level of circularity.
The paper is really well written and the proposal is very well explained and analyzed, with interesting results.
It is very interesting the last sentence of the Discussion section, explaining that the added value of this study is rather to challenge the way European decision-making perceives the CE and that the concept can only triumph if it is applied as a novel way to manage resources and not as a new alternative to pursuit economic growth. I consider that this idea should be included in the abstract or the introduction section.
Figures 2 to 6 indicate the Counties by the initials in their own language, not in English (for instance Spain is represented as ES, from España, or Germany is represented as DE, from Deutschland). Therefore it is necessary ti indicate which Country is represented by each of the initials. For instance in Appendix A after the names of the countries the Acronym in the own languages could be indicated between parenthesis, and in the document, where Figure 2 is referenced, a note could be included indicating that the meaning of the acronyms of that and following figures can be found in Appendix A.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer3,
Thank you for your cooperation in reviewing our article. We understand that you highlighted the missing description of the country acronyms in Figure 2-6. As recommended, we have added this information to the table in Appendix A and written a short note about it (Lines 194-196).
We are delighted to see your positive attitude towards our paper. The closing sentence of the Discussion is truly a major statement and the credo of our research. Thus, we would like to keep it as a concluding thought regarding the presented controversies. The abstract already contains some preliminary results and the introduction rather poses this added value as a question (Lines 143-144). The aim of leaving the highlighted statement as a closing sentence is to answer that question and open new horizons at the same time.
Please find all the required changes marked with the colour of red. The paper has also received a final language check and the minor modifications are also highlighted.
