Assessment of Sustainable Economic Development in the EU Countries with Reference to the SDGs and Environmental Footprint Indices

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

See the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1: English language and style

 (x) Extensive editing of English language and style required

( ) Moderate English changes required

( ) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required

( ) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

 

Response 1: English grammar and spelling were checked using English Grammarly software  English grammar, spelling, punctuation and phrasing were checked, revised and edited by professional English linguist specialist Miss. Viktorija Milteryte. The new revised version (with track changes) of the paper is uploaded.

 

Point 2: The Introduction is full of citations, but they are not logically organized. The Section 1 (1.3 pages) has only two paragraphs, the section 2 (1.2 pages) has only one paragraph!

The definitions are not included when used first, e.g., Ecological Footprint is mentioned in section 3.2 but the relation to environmental footprint (used from the Abstract on) is not presented before p. 9; even the abbreviation EF is not connected to one of them, only.

Most of the literature cites that the terms mean the same, but the authors handle the Ecological Footprint as one of the three indicators of the environmental footprint, only.

 

Response 2: The introduction section was revised and organized according to the comments of the reviewer. Sections 1 and 2 were revised and were logically organized adding additional and deleting unnecessary citations. The methodology section was revised and edited as well. The definitions were revised and corrected. The new revised version (with track changes) of the paper is uploaded.

 

Point 3: The authors shall use The International System of Units (SI) for all dimensional quantities and respect the ISO 80000 standard (Quantities and units) rules on the names and symbols of quantities and units, as well as printing rules (International standard ISO 80000-1–80000-14: Quantities and units (2009–2020), International Organization for Standardization, Genève: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_80000 – see e.g., ISO 80000-1 (2009), General: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:80000:-1:ed-1:v1:en).

Units are not presented with few exceptions which are wrong.

Symbols and abbreviations shall be explained when mentioned for the first time and used further on (this is true for SDGs, too).

Symbols of quantities are generally single letters of the Latin or Greek alphabet, with subscripts (or explanations added in parenthesis) if needed; they are printed in italic (sloping) type; italics are used automatically by the Equation Editor. A subscript that represents a physical quantity or a mathematical variable, such as running number, is printed in italics, e.g., a_i. Other subscripts, such as those representing words or fixed numbers, are printed in roman (upright) type, e.g., I_SD, min(x).

 

Response 3: Thanks for the comments of the reviewer now the units, symbols and formulas were revised according to the comments of the reviewer. We have tried to fix (to rid of) the bold letters in equations by modifying the style as well, but sometimes after saving the text and opening it again the bold text appears. All the comments of the reviewer were taken into account and the new reviewed version of the paper is uploaded. The new revised version (with track changes) of the paper is uploaded.

 

Point 4: The English language is not appropriate. There are too many mistakes to be listed. The authors can use Proofing Language function, or Grammarly Free Online Writing Assistant – than the text shall be proofread and corrected by a native English speaker.

 

Response 4: English grammar and spelling were checked using English Grammarly software. English grammar, spelling, punctuation and phrasing were checked, revised and edited by professional English linguist specialist Miss Vitalija Milteryte. The new revised version (with track changes) of the paper is uploaded.

 

Point 5: Some examples of mistakes and other remarks below are in principle mentioned once, only (page/line numbers are given) – further corrections are expected from the authors:

• 1/15: SDGi à SDGs
• 2/80, 81: resources cannot be derived from resources
• 3/108: … periodization of the economic period …?
• 3/120: … social capital but not a capital –what kind of capital? financial, shareholders’?
• 4/176, 177: 1970 – 2017 à 1970–2017; 90% à 90 % (space between number and % sign
• 4/179: 20 percent à 20 % – the authors are using %, percent, and pct., but % is to be used with a number, only
• 6/255: some parts of the sentence are a duplication of the one on p. 5/252
• 6/274, etc.: The term “percentage” shall not be used as a quantity name as it is misleading.
• Instead, the unambiguous term “fraction” (volume fraction, mass fraction, number fraction, value fraction, etc.) shall be used
• 7/333: what is ‘percentage rate’? – %/a (percent per year)?
• 8/Table 1: economic output that is produced per unit of gross available energy à … produced per gross … (quantity name should not refer to any unit); g CO2 per km à g/km (CO2 is a part of the quantity name – CO2 emissions, not a part of a unit); tonnage à mass (with a unit tone, t)
• 4: I_SD is on both sides of the equation; why are equations written in bold letters?
• 5: use symbols instead of written names of quantities
• 10/399: tones of GHG per capita, percentage à t/s or t/h? (GHG per capita are part of the quantity name – mass flow rate (?) – not a part of the unit); what kind of fraction?
• 10/449, etc.: the dash (not a hyphen) is to be used with number range, e.g., 27-32 à 27–32; the same is true for pages in References
• 12/467: 36 and 16 21 pct. à 36 % and ? % (16 or 21?)
• Table 6, title: what kind of indices?
• 12/479: decreased à increased
• 13/509: do not underestimate à do underestimate
• 14/592, etc.: 2018, 13, 973–1000 à 2018, 13, 973–1000 (volumes are to be printed in italics –see Sustainability Journal Instructions for Authors: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions

 

Response 5: Thanks to the comments of the reviewer, all marked places were revised (figures, words, letters) and corrected. We are satisfied that after the corrections the paper has greatly improved its quality. The new revised version (with track changes) of the paper is uploaded.  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

General remarks

The subject under consideration in the manuscript is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Environmental Footprint indices. This is a manuscript by an appreciable number of authors, which, in my opinion, should mean that it would be (almost) flawless. Unfortunately, this is far from the case, as will be explained below.

Specific remarks

Starting with the title of the manuscript, I confess that I was somewhat disappointed with what, in fact, should be understood by the term “Regional”. In fact, as the analysis of the performance of the different regions of the countries, with regard to the SDGs, is much less frequent, I thought that this would be the geographic breakdown that would be considered. I was thus misled by the title of the manuscript, but I admit that the fault may have been mine.

 

Continuing with the abstract, this serves as a perfect example of what is, in my opinion, the most serious flaw in the manuscript. In fact, the manuscript presents, in many parts, a lack of coherence in its discourse, which makes it (very) confused, therefore (very) confusing. To be clear, consider the first part of the first sentence of the abstract, i.e, “The article analyses sustainability of regional economic development according sustainable development paradigm, […]”. I am sure that a second reading of that sentence by the authors would immediately detect that something is missing there. It is also missing what are the regions under analysis, which is something that the abstract should explicitly mention. It also seems strange that none of the authors have detected that the acronym SDG, in parentheses, after “sustainable development goals”, appears twice, when, obviously, a single time would be enough. Still in the abstract, consider the last sentence, i.e. “The results showed that despite of many indices for evaluation of sustainable development and environmental problems none of them have proved its best practical applications, so the synergetic complex approach needed.” Quite frankly, I cannot understand what the authors mean by “its best practical applications” let alone what the authors mean by “complex”. Also note that “synergetic”, which seems to be of importance for the manuscript, appears only in the abstract, i.e., not in the rest of manuscript

What has been said above is, unfortunately, illustrative of what characterizes a substantial part of the manuscript. To be clear, some examples are as follows:

·        (page 1: 29-31) “Sustainable development (SD) paradigm is “…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.”. The citation present in this sentence must, of course, present its source.

·        (page 3: 107-110) “The periodization of the economic period and the evaluation of various forms of RES support mechanisms from a macroeconomic point of view have their own specific purpose and objectives.” Besides being a sentence not totally correct, from a grammatical point of view, I sincerely cannot understand what “The periodization of the economic period” is supposed to mean.

·        (page 5: 230) “EC will adopt in 2021 a zero pollution action plan for air, water and soil.” This sentence, obviously, needs to be updated and, most of all, verified if it corresponds to actually happened.

·        (page 9. 377) “[…] r – discount rate.”. What was the discount rate that the authors considered in the indices?

·        (page 11: 447-448) “The result of SDG indices in the period 2015 and 2020 showed that the majority of SDG indices increased from 14 to 34 pct.” After consulting Tables 2 and 3, I confess that I could not understand from where the values 14 and 34 come from. Eventually, this is due to a different understanding of what “increased from 14 to 34 pct” means.

·        (page 13: 557) “There is no strong correlations between SDG indices.” Is this correlation calculated between the indices, within each country, or between countries?

·        (page 14: 573-574) “Consequently the major impact to the overall value of integrated sustainable development index make the EF index.” I can see what the authors wanted to say but the sentence is not completely clear. By the way, it is also usual to acknowledge, in the concluding section, the limitations of the study (as possible avenues for futures analyses).

·        It is not by chance that (scientific) journals are so demanding with the formatting of bibliographic references. Looking at the list, one can easily see that not all of them are equally formatted.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Point 1: English language and style

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required
(x) Moderate English changes required
( ) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required
( ) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

 

Response 1: English grammar and spelling were checked using English Grammarly software. English grammar, spelling, punctuation and phrasing were checked, revised and edited by professional English linguist specialist Miss Vitalija Milteryte. The new revised version (with track changes) of the paper is uploaded.

 

Point 2: Starting with the title of the manuscript, I confess that I was somewhat disappointed with what, in fact, should be understood by the term “Regional”. In fact, as the analysis of the performance of the different regions of the countries, with regard to the SDGs, is much less frequent, I thought that this would be the geographic breakdown that would be considered. I was thus misled by the title of the manuscript, but I admit that the fault may have been mine.

 

Response 2: We took into account all the remarks of the reviewer and have revised the text of the paper (see the revised new version of the paper). We have tried to identify problems and opportunities of the sustainable economic development in EU countries in the paper through SDGs, integrated sustainable development and environmental footprint index approach. The term “Regional” appeared in our research as a meaning of the EU countries. We have taken into account the remarks of the reviewer because we agree that the term “Regional” could be a fault for readers (mislead them) while reading the paper, so we have agreed and changed this term to “EU countries”. Consequently, we slightly changed the title of our paper to “Assessment of sustainable economic development in EU countries with Reference to the SDGs and Environmental Footprint Indices”.

 

Point 3: Continuing with the abstract, this serves as a perfect example of what is, in my opinion, the most serious flaw in the manuscript. In fact, the manuscript presents, in many parts, a lack of coherence in its discourse, which makes it (very) confused, therefore (very) confusing. To be clear, consider the first part of the first sentence of the abstract, i.e, “The article analyses sustainability of regional economic development according sustainable development paradigm, […]”. I am sure that a second reading of that sentence by the authors would immediately detect that something is missing there. It is also missing what are the regions under analysis, which is something that the abstract should explicitly mention. It also seems strange that none of the authors have detected that the acronym SDG, in parentheses, after “sustainable development goals”, appears twice, when, obviously, a single time would be enough. Still in the abstract, consider the last sentence, i.e. “The results showed that despite of many indices for evaluation of sustainable development and environmental problems none of them have proved its best practical applications, so the synergetic complex approach needed.” Quite frankly, I cannot understand what the authors mean by “its best practical applications” let alone what the authors mean by “complex”. Also note that “synergetic”, which seems to be of importance for the manuscript, appears only in the abstract, i.e., not in the rest of manuscript.

 

Response 3: The abstract and introduction section was revised and organized according to the comments of the reviewer. Sections 1 and 2 were revised and were logically organized adding additional and deleting unnecessary citations. The methodology section was revised and edited as well. The definitions were revised and corrected. The new revised version (with track changes) of the paper is uploaded.

 

Point 4: What has been said above is, unfortunately, illustrative of what characterizes a substantial part of the manuscript. To be clear, some examples are as follows:

• (page 1: 29-31) “Sustainable development (SD) paradigm is “…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.”. The citation present in this sentence must, of course, present its source. (Wackernagel, M., & Rees, W. (1998). Our ecological footprint: reducing human impact on the earth (Vol. 9). New society publishers.) à tekste [1] pirmu numeriu, bet anksčiau buvo [43], - tai reikia perkelti iš [43] į [1] ir pernumeruoti. (bet gal po to, kai paredaguosiu visą tekstą).
• (page 3: 107-110) “The periodization of the economic period and the evaluation of various forms of RES support mechanisms from a macroeconomic point of view have their own specific purpose and objectives.” Besides being a sentence not totally correct, from a grammatical point of view, I sincerely cannot understand what “The periodization of the economic period” is supposed to mean.
• (page 5: 230) “EC will adopt in 2021 a zero pollution action plan for air, water and soil.” This sentence, obviously, needs to be updated and, most of all, verified if it corresponds to actually happened.
• (page 9. 377) “[…] r – discount rate.”. What was the discount rate that the authors considered in the indices? (Discount rate was 2 % for the period of 12 years, but in the article the discounted value of Isd was not calculated. This formula is only presneting a possibility that a discount rate can be used in the eavkuation of SDG)
• (page 11: 447-448) “The result of SDG indices in the period 2015 and 2020 showed that the majority of SDG indices increased from 14 to 34 pct.” After consulting Tables 2 and 3, I confess that I could not understand from where the values 14 and 34 come from. Eventually, this is due to a different understanding of what “increased from 14 to 34 pct” means. (The remark of the reviewer was appropriate and we took it into account adding some explanations. Most of the values shown in Tables 4 and 5 have increased in the 2020 year compared to 2015. Unfortunately, an average value is not correctly used for making up the conclusions. Most of values were increased and only some of SDG index values (I_EF were decreased by 11%, so average values not representing the real view. A table is attached in this explanation and a new explanation was provided in the revised text)
• (page 13: 557) “There is no strong correlations between SDG indices.” Is this correlation calculated between the indices, within each country, or between countries?

The remark of the reviewer was taken into account and the text was revised as follows: There are no strong correlations between SDG indices between countries. However, the index of environmental footprint changes the least. This is one of the indicators that have the most negative values among EU countries and it indicates that the natural environmental situation is getting worse in these EU countries despite improvement of the situation in other economic sectors.

• (page 14: 573-574) “Consequently the major impact to the overall value of integrated sustainable development index make the EF index.” I can see what the authors wanted to say but the sentence is not completely clear. By the way, it is also usual to acknowledge, in the concluding section, the limitations of the study (as possible avenues for futures analyses).

The remark of the reviewer was taken into account and the text in the Conclusion section was revised (see the new revised version of the paper):

• It is not by chance that (scientific) journals are so demanding with the formatting of bibliographic references. Looking at the list, one can easily see that not all of them are equally formatted.

The remark of the reviewer was taken into account and the text was revised

 

Response 4: The remarks of the reviewer were taken into account and the text was revised. All the remarks were good and we think that after the revision the text quality has improved. We have added the citations where it was needed and consequently the reference list has been updated.

The remark about the formula (4) for calculating of the discounted I_SD index was taken into account only partly and the formula was left in the text but the discount rate was not used in the calculations. We didn’t use the term “discount” and we have not calculated discounted I_SD value, because we haven’t done evaluations in the long term. This remark is worth taking into consideration for the next studies. We will use it in the next of our investigations. The new revised version (with track changes) of the paper is uploaded.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Please look at the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1: English language and style

( ) I would not like to sign my review report
(x) I would like to sign my review report

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required
(x) Moderate English changes required
( ) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required
( ) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

Response 1: English grammar, spelling, punctuation and phrasing were checked, revised and edited by professional English linguist specialist Miss. Vitalija Milkerytė. The new revised version (with track changes) of the paper is uploaded.

 Point 2: They have not respected some of my comments. The difference between the ecological footprint and environmental footprint is not clearly described. The authors start with the ecological footprint in the section 3.2 and continue with the environmental footprint. Environmental footprint approach has been investigated by referring to the article about the ecological footprint (Wackernagel and Rees), and it is measured in gha (p. 11/447). Some references make environmental and ecological footprints equal, others do not:...

Response 2: The remarks and notes were taken into account. The text has been corrected according to the provided comments. Section 3.2 was added with supplementary text and references explaining the difference between ecological and environmental footprint.

 

Point 3:

1/27: … from 11 to 31% … à… from 11 % to 31 % …

1/29, 5/203, 5/209, 5/212, 5/2014, etc.: up to 31%. à up to 31 %. (The space between the

number and the % sign is required by ISO 80000-1)

Response 3: The remarks and notes were taken into account. The text has been corrected according to the provided comments and remarks. For example, the space between the number and the % sign was corrected in all the text. The same was done with the word “amount” and it was corrected in all the text. The text (line 132) was corrected by adding solar energy as well because it also gives an advantage to the sustainable regional energy economy.

Point 4:

8/362, 364: “Economic sustainability” does not include social and environmental ones. Knowledge is introduced as a fourth component of sustainability – I do not oppose to it but SDGs 4 and 17 are a part of social sustainability – explanation is needed

 

Response 4: The economic sustainability in the text is defined as the sustainable development of the economy, consequently the text was corrected as follow: “The main indicators for the evaluation of sustainability can be arranged by grouping SDGs according to the following aspects: environmental, economic, social and knowledge. The economic aspects reflect the group of SDG 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure), SDG 7 (Affordable and clean energy), SDG 17 (Partnership for the goals) and SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production).”

Point 3: Some examples of mistakes and other remarks below are in principle mentioned once, only (page/line numbers are given) – further corrections are expected from the authors:

1/25: … have showed … à … have shown …

1/27: … from 11 to 31% …à … from 11 % to 3

Etc.

 

Response 3: The remarks and notes were taken into account. The corrections were made in all the text.

The tables (values and titles) were corrected according to the notes and remarks of the reviewer.

 Point 4: Tables 2–5: A better title is: Individual and integrated sustainable development indices …; I am not able to find the HDI neither in equations nor in the Tables. There are two sets of Tables what is not mentioned either in the text or in the Table titles; maybe it would be better to group the countries in ‘old’ EU 14 and ‘new’ EU 13 member states – this would enable a better discussion which is now inserted between the two pairs of Tables.

 

Response 3: The remark was really worth making the text more comprehensible. To group EU countries by their development index was worth it. We think that this remark made the text more qualitative.

 Point 3:

References

16/673, etc.: Title of the article is printed in Roman style (not in italic one)

16/712: … Klemeša, J. J. …  … Klemeš, J. J. …

Etc.

Response 3: The remarks and notes of the references section were taken into account. The corrections were made where necessary. In line 673 reference No. 6 is a book, not an article à Jackson T., Prosperity Without Growing. The Transition to a Sustainable Economy… and we think that the book title have to be printed in Roman style according to reference rules.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has improved, and in some aspects could have improved further, if the authors had gone a little further in their responses to the amendment recommendations. For example, I stated "it is also usual to acknowledge, in the concluding section, the limitations of the study (as possible avenues for future analyses).", but I did not think this was taken into account.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1: English language and style

(x) I would not like to sign my review report
( ) I would like to sign my review report

English language and style

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required
( ) Moderate English changes required
(x) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required
( ) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

 

Response 1: English grammar, spelling, punctuation and phrasing were checked, revised and edited by professional English linguist specialist Miss. Vitalija Milkerytė. The new revised version (with track changes) of the paper is uploaded.

 Point 2:

The manuscript has improved, and in some aspects could have improved further, if the authors had gone a little further in their responses to the amendment recommendations. For example, I stated "it is also usual to acknowledge, in the concluding section, the limitations of the study (as possible avenues for future analyses).", but I did not think this was taken into account.

 

Response 2: The remarks and notes were taken into account. The text has been corrected according to the provided comments. The discussion section was added with additional text explaining the limitation of the research study and the possibility of future analysis.

The limitation of this study is that the EF method focuses more on environmental impacts, however, there is an increasing concern related to social impacts in the global context, including labour issues, food and water scarcity, global warming, global security and other issues. These aspects play an increasingly important role nowadays. So there is a need to closely follow the developments of social life cycle assessment analysing environmental, social and economic impacts. A majority of the SDGs have direct or indirect relevance for the well-being of current and future generations, so the importance of social sustainability issues must be highlighted in future research.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

See the attachment, please.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The remarks, notes and comments were taken into account and the text was corrected and revised according to the reviewer report. 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf