Multiple Understandings of Sustainability among Alternative Food Organizations in Geneva

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. General observation:

• The topic is interesting but the paper need deep and major revisions.
• Authors should apply Sustaiblitity references style.
• A deep English editing with a professional is mandatory.

 

2. Introduction

• The title in the text and the one in the system are different. Which one is the good one?
• Please provide a definition of AFO.
• The introduction need a deep re-organization. The ideas are mixed and confusing. For example, the paragraph” “The notion of sustainability is central to the concerns….(Boisvert, Carnoye and Petitimbert 2019; Ekins et al. 2003; Neumayer 2003)”. (Lines 52-63) should be at eh beginning.

 

3. Sustainable Food Regimes

• Lines 89-125: delete, it is an unnecessary general presentation about Sustainable development.
• You talk about Food regimes but you didn’t mention this concept in the introduction.
• You have to define AFO and present the relation between AFO and Sustainable food regimes.
• Add the existing literature on AFO.
• This section needs a deep re-organization. There is too much unnecessary details. This section should be summarized and used to place AFO in the context of Sustainable food regimes.

 

4. Materials and Methods

• Line 262: delete “and housing construction”.
• Please specify exactly the timing of the survey from which date to which date (day/month/year).
• Provide more details about the sample. Add a table and split the sample based on the type of organization and its mission: consumption, production, etc.
• Line 312-318: move this paragraph to the research limitations at the end of the conclusion.
• Provide more details about the questionnaire used for the survey.
• Which platform you used for the online survey: Survey Monkey,….?
• It is suggested to add flowchart into research methodology section (Materials and Methods). Authors can refer and cite this important articles for methodology flow chart designing https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.144990.
• Add a table of a figure explaining the frame used for the analysis.

 

5. Conclusion

Add:

• Summary of the main findings
• Comparison with previous studies and existing literature
• Implications and recommendation
• Study limitations

 

Author Response

Memo of changes

December 2021

Thank you for all the helpful comments and suggestions. We have tried to address them and we have extensively revised our manuscript. Below, we present in details the changes that we have made.

Introduction: We have re-written the introduction to improve the organization of the different ideas.

Sustainable food regimes: We deleted lines 89-125 that were too general; we defined the concept of food regimes; we defined AFOs in the introduction and we introduced a section that presents the existing literature on AFOs; we also made more explicit the link between AFOs and sustainable food regimes.

Materials and methods: We present more information about the timing of the survey, the mapping and the survey procedure, and more information about the questionnaire, as well as the platform used. Moreover, we present better the methodology used.

We decided not to present a table to present the sample by consumption, production, distribution, etc. Instead, ,we included information about the N in table 3 (the number of AFOs that are in the production, distribution, consumption, etc. sectors, as well as the number of frames for each sector of activity).

Empirical part: We added some information in the description of Figure 2 so it could be self-explanatory.

Conclusion: We follow the structure proposed by the reviewer. We present the three main findings of our study. We also added a paragraph where we confront our findings with previous studies and existing literature and we expanded the discussion of the implications and recommendations. Moreover, we added a section on the study limitations.

Minor changes: The correct title is the one in the manuscript.

In addition, we have sent the paper out for English proof reading and we have adopted Sustainability reference style.

Reviewer 2 Report

This was a carefully crafted clear manuscript.  It neither over or under sold it's scholarship.  I rarely get manuscripts this clean.  Thank you.

Author Response

thank you for your positive evaluation!

Reviewer 3 Report

The article presents the study of a very relevant aspect of the food sector, such as sustainability. Specifically, it establishes a framework extending the field of sustainability to 5 spheres, which makes it encompass a much broader concept of sustainability. 
It also conducts a field study with surveys to AOF in Genoa. 

In this sense, the authors could improve the article by providing a better explanation of the methodology applied and its justification.

Figure 2 should be self-explanatory. 

The article does not present a discussion of the results with the literature.

Why don't they perform a cluster analysis to reduce the variabels?

Author Response

Memo of changes

December 2021

Thank you for all the helpful comments and suggestions. We have tried to address them and we have extensively revised our manuscript. Below, we present in details the changes that we have made.

Introduction: We have re-written the introduction to improve the organization of the different ideas.

Sustainable food regimes: We deleted lines 89-125 that were too general; we defined the concept of food regimes; we defined AFOs in the introduction and we introduced a section that presents the existing literature on AFOs; we also made more explicit the link between AFOs and sustainable food regimes.

Materials and methods: We present more information about the timing of the survey, the mapping and the survey procedure, and more information about the questionnaire, as well as the platform used. Moreover, we present better the methodology used.

We decided not to present a table to present the sample by consumption, production, distribution, etc. Instead, ,we included information about the N in table 3 (the number of AFOs that are in the production, distribution, consumption, etc. sectors, as well as the number of frames for each sector of activity).

Empirical part: We added some information in the description of Figure 2 so it could be self-explanatory.

Conclusion: We follow the structure proposed by the reviewer. We present the three main findings of our study. We also added a paragraph where we confront our findings with previous studies and existing literature and we expanded the discussion of the implications and recommendations. Moreover, we added a section on the study limitations.

Minor changes: The correct title is the one in the manuscript.

In addition, we have sent the paper out for English proof reading and we have adopted Sustainability reference style.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The points that I raised have been addressed fully and clearly by the authors. 

Author Response

Thank you for checking our revisions!