Barriers to Implementing the Circular Economy in the Construction Industry: A Critical Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article opens new and interesting research perspectives.

It is clearly written. The results are clearly explained and the limits of the research are well highlighted.

However, some methodological aspects should be clarified:

• First, reference is made to 18 approaches (see section 2.1) "extracted from a previous work done on the identification, definition and classification of asset lifecycle strategies for EC (Charef et al. 2021)". The reference is made to an accepted but not yet published text: therefore, it is not possible to understand how this analysis was conducted; please briefly clarify the methodology in this article too;
• Second, the methodology used to select the 41 articles refers to qualitative review and purposive sampling (see section 2.2). Although this is a non-probabilistic form of sampling, the criteria for selection should be clarified, beyond the authors' expertise or the scientific value of the publications (e.g., what time frame? what types of journals? ...)

Other comments on the paper:

• Paragraph 2.3: Please specify in the text that, of the three main types of barrier categories found in the literature, the one related to "a discipline" is chosen to classify the 6 macro-categories in this study. Please provide more information about the reason. Moreover, are the categories derived from a previous study by one of the authors? If so, it should be specified.
• Please make Figure 3 more readable.
• If possible, draw the two Sankey diagrams (fig. 2 and 3) at the same scale, so that the importance of all 6 different macro-categories of barriers can be compared and not just 3 at a time. If the images don't fit horizontally (due to proportion issues), can you rotate them vertically?
• Please review the formatting of the references in the text. It is often different. Example: Line 37: ..., (author et al. year); Line 52: ...(author et al., year); Line 54: ..., (author et al., year).

• Please review also the formatting of the references at the end. See for example ref. 14, 23, 26, 29…

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

please find our response attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The main issue is the lack of scientific reference to literature. A strong effort is required to make the paper scientific.

Abstract has inappropriate structure. I suggest to answer the following aspects: - general context - novelty of the work - methodology used - main results 

Introduction presents interesting information. However, does not succeed to frame the framework within relevant literature. Scientific literature is almost absent. This section need to be reinforced: You could for example emphasize the role of circular economy also looking at social aspects. I would suggest to use this section to discuss about the relevance of waste materials for the application of circular economy principle. The circular economy approach has the goal to make better use of resources/materials through reuse, recycling and recovery, and also to minimise the energy and environmental impact of resource extraction and processing. Bio-based industry and bioenergy are paramount:

Please see:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102238

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117868

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149605

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2019.111220

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2020.12.034

The research methodology seems underdeveloped. Methods should be described in detail. Indeed, I think the research procedure could be much more clearly described by means of a diagram also highlighting its potential and limit.

Results need to be discussed in light of literature.

 Conclusions are extremely succinct. I suggest to authors to propose policy directions in a broader sense. Link with future lines of research should look at financial sustainability of projects.  A clear example is “green finance”.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

please find our response attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting paper, which has  provided a detailed map of the barriers that would help the stakeholders from the 22 AEC sector to develop strategies to overcome the current obstacles to shift to a CE. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for you comments.

best regards

JC MOREL

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors did not properly account to my former comments. To my opinion, the manuscript does not achieve a publishable standard as it is.