Integrating Environmental, Social, and Economic Dimensions to Monitor Sustainability in the G20 Countries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 Kindly revise for minor improvements to English grammar.

 

No further comments. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your positive response. English grammar and syntax were carefully revised.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors!

The topic is interesting, also from the point of view of problems of quantitative monitoring the sustainability in the G20 countries. This paper is interesting and well qualified in publication but with  the consideration of the following concerns:

1. The work uses analytical methods, but no mathematical formulas were presented (2. Method). There are many methods of multidimensional comparative analysis and methods of constructing rankings. Please explain in detail the rules for selecting the method of analysis (supported by citations from the literature of the subject).

 2. The Authors do not specify whether the final variables are characterized by appropriate (high) volatility. For example in the line 208 (table 1.) there is: “K53 – Mobile cell phone subscriptions”. Please consider if this variable has enough volatility and if it doesn't reduce to a constant in some cases.

3. Were correlations and volatility of the variables been discussed?

4. In the line 233: “https://data.worldbank.org”. Please check the text editing and date of access.

5.  In the line 332: to long interval before “the period.”

6. In the line 359-360 You wrote: “ A dependence is perceived between the environmental and economic dimensions,  especially from 2006 onwards….”. On what basis? Whether based on the evaluation of the chart or based on the quantitative indicator of dependence?

7. In the line 413 (Table 2.) Please consider including country numbers in the rankings.

8. In the line 447: “Canada”  please check the text editing.

In spite of all these lines, I consider that the Authors have done good work. The topic of this paper is appropriate to the scope of Sustainability Journal. Finally, it is necessary to review all references and adopt the rules of the editorial. After corrections I recommend the article to be published.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your positive comments and careful revision. Responses follow the numbering set by the reviewer:

1) Appendix 1 was included to show the details of the calculations, which can also be found in the references provided - Giannetti et al ., (2019) and Moreno García et al., (2021).

2) Mobile cell phone subscriptions (per 100 people) are widely used in the literature since they directly influence the generation of electronic waste [Chaudhary, K., Vrat, P. Circular economy model of mobile phone gold recovery using systems dynamics approach: a case study from India. Environment, Development and Sustainability. 2020, 22 (1), 173-200.]. Since the study covers 20 years, the variations in subscriptions may help to evaluate the generation of electronic waste.

3) this discussion is not within the scope of the analysis.

4) Thanks; the text was corrected

5) Thanks; the text was corrected

6) Thanks; the text was corrected: "Based on the SISS values, dependence between the environmental and economic dimensions is perceived....

7) Thanks. Country numbers in the rankings were included.

8) Thanks; the text was corrected.

Final comment: Thank you. References were revised, and the rules of Sustainability were adopted.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper deals with a very interesting topic currently discussed in literature: Integrating environmental, social, and economic dimensions to monitor the sustainability in the G20 countries. The article starts from the premise that several regions have struggled to define and implement strategic priorities to ensure resource supply security and environmental, economic, and social sustainability. The authors propose the Five Sectors Sustainability model, supported by Goal Programming, as a multicriteria analysis tool to generate a synthetic sustainability indicator to assist decision-making.

General considerations

 

1. Structure: It follows the classic structure of a scientific manuscript with the introduction, literature review (in the introduction itself), statement of the problem, methodology and results and discussions.

 

2.      Abstract: It is informative and concise. It follows the standard scientific structure: Introduce the problem, describe what has been done, the method and the main results.

 

3.      Introduction section: I suggest authors to focus more on the research gap, these arguments should support the whole research. Furthermore, I suggest to present the structure of the article at the end of the introduction section.

 

4.      A literature review section is lacking. I suggest authors to provide some sort of “background” of this research. By examining the literature on the subject, the authors could grasp the aspects highlighted by other scholars and present the novelty of this research.

 

5.      Results and discussion section: In this section I found several references to previous literature on this topic. I suggest authors to anchor these references in a literature section.

 

6.      Conclusions section: I suggest authors to better develop this section, show the limitation of this study, elaborate more on the implications of this research to the future research agenda, practice, policy and society.

Author Response

Thank you for your constructive feedback.

1) Summary - thank you

2) Abstract - thank you

3) Thank you, the structure of the article was included at the end of the introduction section.

4) Authors opted to use the model in which Introduction includes the most relevant - for this work - literature. The idea is to lead readers to identify the contributions of the paper. This model allows us to use more text in results and discussion and respect the allowed number of words by Sustainability editorial rules.

5) Thanks; the text was improved.

6) Thank you for this comment; the text was improved.

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors' team presents an interesting and useful study related to circular economy and sustainable development. The positive side of the study is a clear presentation of the relationship between circular economy and sustainable development, extensively and clearly presented methodology and data sources, and a discussion of the results. Nevertheless, there are some errors or the need to clarify or improve certain elements, which in my opinion requires correction of the text. Especially it should be added results for whole UE, because UE is part of the G20. Since the title suggests results for the entire G20, such a supplement is, in my opinion, necessary.

My detail comments are as follows:

1) The G20 is a group of 19 countries and the EU. The title mentions the G20, so research results on the EU should also be included in the results. The authors explain that the EU is not a country and therefore they omitted it from the research results. However, due to the structure of the G20, the EU should not be omitted, otherwise the title of the entire paper should be changed and it should be stated that it concerns exactly 19 countries that are part of the G20. Otherwise, with the current title of the paper, EU-wide results must be added and commented on in the discussion. 

2) I propose to change the title of the second chapter to "Method and Materials".

3) Lines 94-95 - there is an explanation of who is part of the G20 group. I do not agree with the opinion that Russia is among the eight wealthiest countries in the world. Its presence in the G8 resulted from its political power and nominal GDP, while Russia is generally classified as an emerging country (for example, together with Brazil, India and China, they are referred to as the BRIC group), and looking at GDP per capita, it is classified between 60-70 place in the world. I propose to change this sentence so that the G20 consists of the seven largest economies in the world (G7), 12 emerging countries and the EU. The more so that later in the discussion of the results there are references to the G7 and not to the G8.

4) Line 65 - There is a quoted item (Mazur-Wierzbicka, 2021), but this article is missing from the bibliography. Please complete the citations in the bibliography and check if there are all other publications in this list.

5) Figures and tables - please describe the source under each of them. In addition, the table or figure should have a concise title and separate from comments or explanations. In this version the titles are either very long or with added symbol explanations or even comments on how to interpret the results contained therein. Please change it according to the following formula: 1. title of the figure (or table), 2. source of the elaboration (own elaboration or third party with citation), 3. explanation of symbols in the figure or in the table. Each element should be on a new line. Any additional comments or interpretations should be transferred to the text outside the figure or table.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your positive comments and careful revision. Responses follow the numbering set by the reviewer:

1) Thank you very much for this comment. Although it is common to find papers analyzing the G20 countries and dealing with the 19 ones, we corrected the text making clear why and how 19 countries are analyzed.

2) Done. Thank you.

3) Thank you. Russia is moved to the intermediary group.

4) Thank you. References were revised.

5) Figures and tables were conceived and built by the authors, and there is no need to cite their sources. Legends and captions were improved.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

I accept most of the changes, especially related to my earlier suggestions. However, I have doubts about Figure 3. The result lines for G12 and G19 are superimposed, suggesting that they are identical results. However, it is clear that the results for the G7 are significantly different. So the result for the entire G19 group should be between the results for G7 and G12. This is currently not visible, so this error should be eliminated. Additionally, under figure no. 3 in line 300, the abbreviation G8 should be corrected to G7.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your careful review and valuable suggestions.

Figure 3 was replaced - thanks!

The abbreviation under Fiig. 3 was corrected.