An Innovative Strategy Allowing a Holistic System Change towards Circular Economy within Supply-Chains

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript presents an analysis of existing CE conceptualisations, and seeks to operationalise CE frameworks by integrating various components from existing frameworks. As such, the research takes on an important challenge. In the present form however, the links and contribution to the existing literature on CE is as yet unclear.

The authors state (Line 86) that “the majority of companies still adopt a linear approach or just focus on providing information to the end-user in order to maximize theirs satisfaction during the use phase”.  This illustrates a gap between the agency of businesses and the broader systemic nature of CE problems. This gap needs to be discussed, if only to provide clarity about what the contribution of the paper is, and what it is not.

While Figure 1 is quite helpful, more text is needed by way of explanation of the method – with support from the literature. Section 2 does not make it in any way clear what the paper is doing, and why. It appears that the paper is a mapping of Morseletto’s framework across to the Ellen MacArthur framework, but this needs to be made much clearer upfront, as well as the reasons for doing so. My understanding is that these frameworks are focusing on two completely different scales/perspectives i.e. on 1) product cycles and 2) systems, and it is unclear what can be really from conflating the two. Is it to add additional system elements into product-focused perspectives?

Following on from this, the paragraph beginning on Line 271 – and the subsequent conclusions - suggests that CE designs should be based on available infrastructure. This seems at odds with wider system perspectives on change which highlight infrastructural changes as a necessary component of sustainable transitions. It might be that the applicability of the framework presented here is limited to single organisations, but even if so, some discussion of the wider systemic implications of all of this would be valuable – if only to guard against the assumption that infrastructures do not need to be redesigned with CE in mind.

The results section proceeds without context. Is the review of CE as a concept in 3.1 and 3.2 actually results in the conventional sense? (Again, Fig 1 doesn’t mention a review of CE concepts as a method) If so, what was the method for identifying/sorting/analysing literature? If not, then this doesn’t really belong in the Results section. Both methods and results need expanded and restructured to give some logic to the flow of the paper.

Some more minor comments/suggestions follow…

1. Line 18: Both clauses in the second paragraph of the abstract doesn’t make sense and needs reworded – and so it is, at present, difficult to tell what the paper is about.
2. Line 38 and Line 40: Sentences needs rewording.
3. Line 55. “Contrary” or “In addition to”? And are these “opinions” or “findings”/”assertions”?
4. Line 95: The sentence beginning “Thereof” doesn’t make sense.
5. Line 125: Sentence starting “During the last decades” has poor english
6. Line 215 needs to reference Figure 2 – it isn’t clear that the text is referring to this Figure until late on in the paragraph. Also suggest moving the figure to below this first para to improve readability.
7. Figure 4: What are infinite mining materials? Where is the arrow at (3) doing? Where is the lower end of this pointing to? This is far from clear at present. What is the distinction between users and consumers?
8. Fig 4/Line 254: Why is the information/ communication line connecting only to the collection and sorting stage, and not to all of the other boxes?
9. Line 251: Reword sentence beginning with “Summarized”
10. Line 296: The “concept changing” what?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is interesting and try to explain the importance of a strategy in the circular economy (CE) field. The authors design the strategy process for CE and adapt models from this field in their approach.

Following recommendations are important in order to improve the article.

1. Chapter Research Methodology has to be improved. There is a need to explain the main research instruments or methods that are used. For example in order to develop a strategy is important to explain also how the data is collected and how is if you want to define goals or other strategic options.....Here you may explain which are the main case studies which have to be analyzed and how do you organize the discussions with experts or other stakeholders. Are you using structured or common interviews? 

2. Chapter Results has to be focused on your main research results. The definition of Sustainability or the history of Club of Rome may be integrated in the Chapter Introduction not here. Also other general definitions, such as waste hierarchy has to be added to introduction or in a literature review chapter.
3. There is a need to separate the Discussions part from Conclusions part.
4. If you don’t want to have many Chapters you may integrate the Chapter Results with Discussions.
5. The Conclusions have to be clear and supported by the results.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper aims to define a new strategy for the development of the Circular Economy by acting on the supply chain, connecting the information flow between end-of-life (EOL) and beginning-of-life (BOL) of products.

It is appropriate to clarify the research question and strengthen the contribution of this paper by better describing the aim of the work in the abstract and in the text.

it is necessary to describe more in depth the theoretical and managerial implications of the work.

The methodology should be implemented through references to the literature. The research design is clear, as are the theoretical bases used, but the method should be better defined (is it a case study? e.g. you can adopt the Yin methodology). 

The paper deals with an interesting and topical issue that needs to be treated more completely in respect of the implications of the study and the future step of the research.   I recommend removing the bulleted list in lines 55-71

Author Response

Please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper aim to define a new strategy for the development of the Circular Economy by acting on the supply chain, connecting the information between end-of-life (EOL) and beginning-of-life (BOL) of products. 

The aim of the study has been clarified and the abstract has been implemented. The methodology now has a more defined structure and is well described. The required revisions have been carried out and the paper is suitable for publication.

Author Response

Thank you very much for the constructive comments.

If there are any additional points, feel free to come back to us.