Blockchain Technology in Life Cycle Assessment—New Research Trends

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, The title of the paper and the abstract prompted me to read the article, which...
unfortunately began to falter with each line.
First of all, the title is vague and does not give precise information about the scope
scope of application of the discussed technique.
As a further consequence, the authors have essentially written an essay rather than a scientific article. They did not specify
The methodology of the study was not specified, no results were presented, the interpretation of which would allow estimating the
proposed application of the new method. They wrote only a few sentences about what was studied by
whom. It is very good, in fact, it is a solid literature review and introduction, but
may not be the substance of the article. I don't know what to refer to, what to compare to, how to replicate
considerations to argue with the results....
So I propose to: 
1. clarify the title, add specifically the field of application
2. change the abstract with more emphasis on construction rather than
environment.
3. slightly shorten what the authors have written so far, and then after a clearly stated thesis,
try to verify it using the original data.
4. based on these results, build a discussion and conclusion about the need, advantages, and disadvantages of the proposed
method.
I noticed typos in the text and it is not formatted according to the journal requirements.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the comments on the publication. We would like to point out that this publication is an overview and is not a typical article. The authors reviewed the literature and pointed to research gaps and possible further research directions in the use of blockchain technology in LCA.

The authors, following the reviewer's suggestion, rebuilt the article and pointed to the advantages, disadvantages and current limitations of the use of blockchian technology in the LCA method. The bibliography of the publication was expanded significantly, by 39 items.

Reviewer 2 Report

The statistical treatment of the study data is described in a rather superficial and ambiguous way, so that the way in which they were treated and the information they were able to report to the study is not very clear. 

The results of the a priori study seem to be consistent with the objectives set out in the article, although it is no less true that they are described in an excessively brief and superficial manner. Despite this, they conform to the methodological approaches established and planned in the study and are, for the most part, conveniently organized and written, at least from a chronological and statistical point of view. 

The conclusions of the study are correctly stated, organized and described. However, despite this, they are unable to clearly delimit the scientific space through which the different empirical studies that, in the future, intend to continue with the trail or the path that they have stopped exploring will have to continue or run the present study. 

The references are quite current, despite the fact that in some cases they end up being older than ten years, and are reflected in the text of the article, scrupulously respecting the APA regulations in its seventh edition.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank you for the submitted comments of the reviewer.
The authors, following the reviewer's suggestion, expanded the research area and significantly expanded the scientific discussion. The conclusions indicate the advantages, disadvantages and current limitations of the use of blockchian technology in the LCA method. The bibliography of the publication was expanded significantly, by 39 items.

Reviewer 3 Report

I think that it is not a good review article. A good review is a paper who has deep studies on previous works and can provide some significant open problems for the readers. I read through this review and I think that it is just a copy/paste from existing papers and I do not find it interesting. It is also worth noticing that actually everyone knows that researches on blockchain technology are trending and there have had already many good review papers on this topic in the literature.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank you for the submitted comments of the reviewer.
The authors improved the construction of the publication, significantly expanded the bibliography (39 new publications were included in the bibliography). The research discussion was extended and on its basis the conclusions of the conducted research were clarified, as well as the advantages, disadvantages and current limitations of the use of blockchian technology in the LCA method were indicated.

Reviewer 4 Report

I have read a well written manuscript emphasyzing 2 timely topics of interest within research environment: blockchain and Life-cycle assessment. we are surrounded by information about blockchain, but in the vast majority of cases, all this information is related to the financial area. That is why I consider very valuable the highlighting of the multiple uses of the blockchain technology from fig 1. The paper demonstrates the ample efforts of literature research. I suggest to the authors to improve the quality of figures.  I also consider that it would be a plus to emphasize also the limitations blockchain tehnology when using it for LCA.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank you for the submitted comments of the reviewer.
The charts included in the publication are quoted from other articles, therefore we had to keep their graphic form.
The authors improved the construction of the publication, significantly expanded the bibliography (39 new publications were included in the bibliography). The research discussion was extended and on its basis the conclusions of the conducted research were clarified, as well as the advantages, disadvantages and current limitations of the use of blockchian technology in the LCA method were indicated.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, I appreciate much input in improving the text so far. It is now clearer and much better.
Admittedly, I still find it difficult to find concrete results but perhaps this is due to the specifics of the text.
I believe that it is suitable for printing in its present form.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for the reviews of our publication, which significantly influenced its quality.
Best regards,
Authors

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper can be accepted

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for the reviews of our publication, which significantly influenced its quality.
Best regards,
Authors