Effects of Circular Economy Policies on the Environment and Sustainable Growth: Worldwide Research

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper deals with the problems of circular economy in the context of environmental and sustainable growth. The topic is interesting and up to date.

The abstract of the article contains all the required information.

The introduction is well structured and also contains all required parts (definition of the issue, explanation why the given issue is topical and important, summary of the findings on the given topic to date and the aim of the authors of the paper).

The section “Literature review” contains an overview of the current state of knowledge in a broader context of the issue (including, for example, stakeholder management or corporate social responsibility). The section is suitably supplemented by references to the works of a number of authors.

The methodology used is adequately explained in the "Data and Methodology" section, with references to relevant sources. I positively evaluate the graphical expression of the methodology application procedure. The applied methodology is adequate and aims to achieve relevant findings.

The findings are presented in section „Results and Discussion“. This section contains interesting and valuable findings. This section is appropriately supplemented with tables and figures. Please, explain more precisely the term “percentage of variation in the number of articles“ (p. 7, r. 262). P. 8, r. 273, it is not Figure 2, but Figure 3.

The "Conclusions" section summarizes the findings, outlines the limiting factors of the paper and emphasizes its benefits.

Author Response

Please, see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript entitled ‘Effects of the Circular Economy Policies on the Environment and Sustainable Growth Perspective’.

Overall, the topic of your paper is very interesting and worthy of publication. My comments are just for further improving the clarity of the manuscript and better highlight your contribution. 

(1). The title is not accurate – the reader has no idea that this paper is a systematic review (very good one btw).

(2). Introduction

In the first sentence you are mentioning that ‘the circular economy (CE) policies and strategies have been allowing to reduce pressure on the environment’, however first you should explain what CE is. You are doing that later but you should keep the rigor of logical consequences.

(3). Literature Review.

To me, you should make small changes here: 2. Background and 2.1. Literature review. It fits better that way.

(4). The first sentence (Scientometrics studies scientific production to measure and analyze it.) of section 3 has no sense.

(5). Figure 1. Is clear and helpful. Could you explain in greater detail how you conduct the analyses?

(6) Table 3. Consider adding if a paper is OA only or not. This will give you some arguments in future discussions. Also, one more suggestion – perhaps adding an average review/production time will give an answer to why some journals are cited more than others.

(7). Figures 4 and 5. Please use a capital letter when writing names and countries.

(8). You have conducted a very interesting study, that is why the Discussion section should be developed. Now the reader, after reading interesting analysis, does not see a comparison of your study to current knowledge.

Author Response

Please, see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors did extensive research and have used a plethora of references. The manuscript is well written and the results are very well presented. The topic of circular economies is a very interesting and relevant one, though there are still plenty of problems on the way to its full implementation.

I wonder if the manuscript could be more concise and comprehensive- it seems that the text is going in many different directions and at times tries to cover too much and does this with some redundancy. Usually, with scientific papers, it is better to say less and to say it concisely. Otherwise, the main message gets lost.

Here are some of my concrete remarks:

Abstract

13-15 You say “The transition from a linear economy model to a circular one has reduced the pressure on the environment, in addition to considering waste as a resource, enabling sustainable development.” The sentence makes it sound that the transition to a circular economy is complete. However, this is not the case. I suggest rephrasing the sentence.

Introduction

66-67 “The results showed the contributions of this research line…” Shouldn’t this be plural, since you have identified more than one research line?

Literature review

I’m wondering if this part needs a special section, or it could be integrated into the introduction section. Is Table 1 really necessary? Or could the papers simply be referenced in the text? In my opinion, this part has some redundancy and could be presented in a more comprehensive manner.

Data and methodology

168-179 I don’t think it is necessary to describe the background and the history of the method that you are using in your research. It is enough to give a brief explanation like you are doing in lines 181-184.

180-181 Please don’t repeat what is the purpose of the study in the methodology section. This belongs in the introduction and should not be repeated over and over again.

Results and Discussion

This part is far too long and it would be better to divide it into two separate sections- The Results Section and The Discussion Section.

The Results are well presented with excellent tables and figures.

273 You refer to Figure 3 here, not Figure 2

The last part from 574-605 belongs to the discussion.

I realize that it was not the topic of this article to discuss the potential limitations of the circular economy system, but some things could be said in the discussion on the limitations of this concept and its broad-scale implementation, especially from the policy perspective.

Conclusions

The main part of this section actually belongs to the discussion.

607-632 This part is actually the summary of the main findings and should be placed in the discussion section

637-642 Likewise, the identification of the limitations of your study and future research potential belong to the discussion, not the conclusions.

643-645 Is the actual conclusion of your study. Are there any other implications that you can derive?

Author Response

Please, see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Please make the paper a bit more comprehensive.

Author Response

Please, see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Author(s),

Thank you for the opportunity to review the resubmitted manuscript.

I truly appreciate the effort that you have made to improve the paper.

Congratulation of your work!

Well done!

PS. Many thanks for your response and explanation of changes – it was really helpful.