Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,   I want to tell you that your article is very interesting, and that it can be used by those who make decisions so that the economic models take into account that it is necessary to make structural changes so that the economies of countries with a high intensity of labor can know how to propose the creation of new economic policy measures and in this way generate more discussion based on the data raised in your research to generate new economic policy measures to generate structural change even though there is no stage of economic growth.   I encourage you to continue working in this line of research.   Congratulations    

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. We are glad to hear that you find our research interesting for the readers of this journal and that you do not consider any improvements necessary. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript "Structural change for a post-growth economy: Investigating the relationship between embodied energy intensity and labour productivity" is interesting for journal readers but it needs major revisions before further consideration.

The aim of the paper should be assessed more uniformly through the paper. Moreover, the authors should start with a clear question(s) that will be answered. The objectives and/or research questions section would help to summarize and focus the overall aim of the study and improve the conclusion section, once the main ideas are clearly systematized.

As far as the methodological approach is concerning, the presentation should be made clearer. In particular, the equations in the text are too technical and require further explanation.

Moreover, the literature should be enriched, in such a way that the contribution of environmental innovation for more sustainable development of resources is identified (Aldieri et al., 2019).

The results of the analysis should be further discussed and improved also in terms of policy implications. The contribution can be made evident only putting the accent on the gap in the literature.

References.

Aldieri L., Kotsemir M. & Vinci C. P. (2019). Environmental innovations and productivity: Empirical evidence from Russian regions. Resources Policy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2019.101444.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript fits well the focus of Sustainability journal. In my oponion, the manuscript is very well written, but in current form it needs some minor corrections. I would like to suggest if Authors consider, that submitted manusript is too long. Yeas, authors added an extensive appendixes, but the body of manuscript should be shortened if possible. Generally, I have only some detailed comments as it follows:

Line 15: "..reduce environmental impacts" - this statement seems to be very general without information value.

Line 26: Really Authors found the low growth in embodied labour productivity in Germany in the time of study? It seems surprising and it should be briefly explained WHY.

Line 14-29: Generally, I miss in the Abstract clear relatioship to "sustainability" (see the name of the journal...).

Line 34, 36: What mean "several planetary boundaries" and "Moving society back within planetary boundariers" ? Better should be use such terms as "environmental limits" etc. 

line 38: Not only GHC emissions and energy/material use are main envi global problems. Authors should mentione here some other issues, e.g. land-use change in the context of protected areas expansion under Sustainable Dev Goals (see Oprsal et al. What Factors can Influence the Expansion of Protected Areas around the World in the Context of International Environmental and Development Goals? Problemy Ekorozwoju 2018).

Line 43, 53 - Some key terms important for this paper (e.g. post-growth economy, labour-intensive services) should be briefly defined here.

Line 67-69: The same information as in lines 237-239.

Line 70: Start a new paragraph with sentence "A key novelty of ....".

Line 85-88: This statemnt should be moved to the beginning of the section Introduction.

Line 89. Not "three important questions", better should be "three important topics".

Line 108-113: Delete this paragraph, this contents a redundant (and repeating) information.

Line 114-234: I suggest to seriously shorten the section "Literature review" /this is a paper, not thesis/ and some important text from this section should be included to the section Introduction.

Line 265: Remove the text in brackets (see Owen...).

Line 305: Really such information are not available in other countries than UK and Germany? I doubt about it.

Line 406-427: Move this subsection to the section Discussion. It is not "results".

Line 428-619: There are two important shortcomings in the section Results: Firstly, the section is too long (and it is confusing for a reader). Secondly, the text in this section is often a mixture of presentation of results with discussion of results with literature cited. Authors must rewomrk this section in order to abridge/shorten the text in more clear and brief presentation of original results of the study. Also, text discussing the results must be moved to the section Discussion.

Line 728: Authors should add to the section Discussion a short/brief comparison of results from UK and Germany with other developed countries. I miss also in the section Discussion a clear context of results to sustainablity concept - authors should add it.

Line 728: Authors should consider, if they can add a brief note related to results in the context of ecosystem services capacity, if they deal with such economical activities as agriculture, forestry, fisheries (see e.g. doi:10.3390/su11164273).  

Line 733. Not "questions", but better "findings". 

Line 758: See my comment to line 728 - authors should add a brief statement/notice related to significance of main results of the study to sustainability principles.  

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper has been improved and it can be accepted for publication