The Stakeholders’ Perspective within the B Corp Certification for a Circular Approach
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
After reading the manuscript, I surmise the introduction is too long and it lacks a novel proposition in reaction to your analysis. I shall explain this, and list minor errors, that shall be addressed before publication can be considered.
The introduction is incredibly long, disguised by using extra headings (section 3 and 4) prior to the results and discussion. This should be reduced substantially (by at least 2 pages) to make a good balance between background information (currently ~5 pages) and the results (~3 pages).
More seriously, the analysis you have conducted of the certification scheme highlights its benefits and limitations, but you sign off stating this preliminary investigation shall "stimulate future research" and you say "further investigation would represent a critical factor to stimulate research of the role of the certification standard in the activation ... [of a] CE" (CE being circular economy). I am not satisfied that this is anyone else's responsibility but your own. It should be you, the authors of this manuscript, that conduct these further investigations, and I had expected to see that "critical factor" you describe in this article. Otherwise I do not see the point in this preliminary background research being published. I am recommending major revisions so that your "future research" can be accomplished and accommodated now, and combined with this work.
There are also some errors that need correcting:
A "b-corporation" occurs instead of the otherwise consistent use of "B-Corp" in one instance;
In section 3, "cd brown economy" is written but I do not understand what it means;
I do not understand the meaning of the footnote to Table 1. It give a reference [1], which I do not see within the table anyway, that implies there is no source to the reference anyway because it is your own 'elaboration';
Table 1 is abbreviated to Tab. 1 which is unnecessary;
Table 1 contains "e" instead of "and" in one instance;
Some references are repeated, including 8 and 9 (although the year was changed the other aspects of the reference are the same), 21 and 27, 46 and 51, 79 and 83;
The last reference is listed without a number;
Some references use abbreviated journal names and others do not.
Author Response
Authors’ response to Reviewer 1
We first want to thank the Reviewer for the valuable comments and careful handling of the manuscript. The comments gave us different useful insights and were very helpful for clarifying the contributions of the study and improving the quality of the paper. In the revised version of the manuscript, we have addressed each issue raised by the Reviewer. This letter explains the changes we have made (Reviewers’ comment in bold, answers from the authors in plain text).
After reading the manuscript, I surmise the introduction is too long and it lacks a novel proposition in reaction to your analysis. I shall explain this, and list minor errors, that shall be addressed before publication can be considered. The introduction is incredibly long, disguised by using extra headings (section 3 and 4) prior to the results and discussion. This should be reduced substantially (by at least 2 pages) to make a good balance between background information (currently ~5 pages) and the results (~3 pages).
In order to address these concerns, the introduction section was shortened. The section 3 and 4 are revised and merged in the section 2, where we describe the factor and the impact areas used for the discussion.
More seriously, the analysis you have conducted of the certification scheme highlights its benefits and limitations, but you sign off stating this preliminary investigation shall "stimulate future research" and you say "further investigation would represent a critical factor to stimulate research of the role of the certification standard in the activation ... [of a] CE" (CE being circular economy). I am not satisfied that this is anyone else's responsibility but your own. It should be you, the authors of this manuscript, that conduct these further investigations, and I had expected to see that "critical factor" you describe in this article. Otherwise I do not see the point in this preliminary background research being published. I am recommending major revisions so that your "future research" can be accomplished and accommodated now, and combined with this work.
More specifications have been added to the explanation of the rationale of the research to underpin this work in regard to the results and the emerging critical factor.
More attention has been paid to the explanation of the data analysis. One of the strengths of the research is given by the nature of the supporting documents in the B-Corp certification system. This element makes it possible selecting detailed information originating by precise questions related to the requirements to be met from the organizations. The B-Corp documental system is a standard environment wherein there is an ample opportunity for qualitative crossed data analysis. In this regard, we have insisted to describe the extent on the comparability of the information provided by the database selected.
There are also some errors that need correcting:
A "b-corporation" occurs instead of the otherwise consistent use of "B-Corp" in one instance;
In section 3, "cd brown economy" is written but I do not understand what it means;
I do not understand the meaning of the footnote to Table 1. It give a reference [1], which I do not see within the table anyway, that implies there is no source to the reference anyway because it is your own 'elaboration';
Table 1 is abbreviated to Tab. 1 which is unnecessary;
Table 1 contains "e" instead of "and" in one instance;
Some references are repeated, including 8 and 9 (although the year was changed the other aspects of the reference are the same), 21 and 27, 46 and 51, 79 and 83;
The last reference is listed without a number;
Some references use abbreviated journal names and others do not.
Thank you for these remarks, the typos in the text have been corrected.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
-The topic is interesting, however I have several concerns about Methods addressed, which are mainly, but not only, related to documentary analysis. Interviews are needed to improve results and conclusions.
-The methodology section contains no information at all on the data analysis process.
- The discussion and conclusion does not have much contribution beyond reporting a limited data analysis. Research results are too descriptive, quite superficial for a qualitative study and there is no evidence on how data was analyzed.
Author Response
The stakeholders' perspective within the B Corp certification for a circular approach
Manuscript-ID: Sustainability-447176
Authors’ response to Review 2
We first want to thank the Reviewer for the valuable comments and careful handling of the manuscript. The comments gave us different useful insights and were very helpful for clarifying the contributions of the study and improving the quality of the paper. In the revised version of the manuscript, we have addressed each issue raised by the Reviewer. This letter explains the changes we have made (Reviewers’ comment in bold, answers from the authors in plain text).
-The topic is interesting, however I have several concerns about Methods addressed, which are mainly, but not only, related to documentary analysis. Interviews are needed to improve results and conclusions.
Regarding the methods, we have better outlined as to what it entails in terms of scope. The approach is based on the analysis of the qualitative data in a standardized environment in which the documentation plays a key factor for the implementation of the management system. One of the strengths of the research is given by the nature of the supporting documents in the B-Corp certification system. This element makes it possible selecting detailed information originating by precise questions related to the requirements to be met from the organizations. The B-Corp documental system is a standard environment wherein there is an ample opportunity for qualitative crossed data analysis. Furthermore, we have highlighted more deeply the limits of the adopted methodology in the light of the explorative nature of the work: See section 3
-The methodology section contains no information at all on the data analysis process.
More attention has been paid to the explanation of the data analysis. In this regard, we have insisted on describing the extent of comparability of the information provided by the documents within the process analysis. Moreover, we have placed attention throughout the text of the “Section 3 as to how the picked-up data was processed. More specification has been added to the rationale of the research to underpin this work and specified the factor used for the analysis.
- The discussion and conclusion do not have much contribution beyond reporting a limited data analysis. Research results are too descriptive, quite superficial for a qualitative study and there is no evidence on how data was analyzed.
Discussion and conclusion have been enhanced. In specific we have considered the entail of the conclusions in terms of the emergent critical factor. Moreover, the future steps of our research have been set out better. Specifically, we have added the pathway should be undertaken to make it possible to introduce the concept of a measurement model of the certification standard for the switch to the circular economy model.
See section 4 and 5
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Adequate changes have been made to warrant publication.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper has been improved. Thank you for considering the suggestions
