A Systematic Literature Review on Packaging Sustainability: Contents, Opportunities, and Guidelines
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The sustainability-1731265 manuscript proposes a meta-analysis on "packaging" in the light of sustainability criteria.
The methodology applied is correctly described and provides a pertinent map of relevant bibliographical references in the field.
The manuscript illustrates not only the dynamics of this specific topic over the last decades, but also the main scientific elements identified as representative for the (academic and industrial) packaging community. From this point of view, the present work has the potential to contribute to deepening knowledge in this field.
Please change the current title.
In fact, I consider that it is important to announce from the very beginning (from the title) that this manuscript is a meta-analysis of the existing literature data on the field, rather than a systematic overview of the "packaging" field in the context of the relatively recent sustainability criteria.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your dedication to reviewing our article and we appreciate your constructive feedback. Answering your question:
- Please change the current title. In fact, I consider that it is important to announce from the very beginning (from the title) that this manuscript is a meta-analysis of the existing literature data on the field, rather than a systematic overview of the "packaging" field in the context of the relatively recent sustainability criteria.
Response:
We thank the reviewer for the comment. We have carefully considered the reviewer’s suggestion and maybe this could have been our research choice. Nevertheless, as we have designed firstly a systematic literature review it seemed very difficult to adapt the content to a meta-analysis design. Therefore, we have decided to make it clear in the title that this is a Systematic Literature Review, as follows.
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript is a review study about packaging literature from a diverse sustainability perspective. In my opinion, it is going to be a very good fit to the journal. The concept is well introduced by first covering the basics. Statistical coverage of the state of the art is also nicely done along with smart illustrations.
My only major concern is about the formatting and spell check of the paper.
Grammar and spelling should be extensively revised (even the abstract has problems. Line 14: “A systematic literature review of 472 was performed.” 472 what??)
Formatting has many problems as well. Line spacing is inconsistent at some places, eg. Page 15, 1st paragraph. Spacing after full stops is inconsistent too.
Additionally, table style of the paper is very different than the text itself. It is very hard to follow and read the tables.
Authors wrap up the paper by stating that their framework identifies opportunities. However, these are not clear. I strongly suggest them to point certain directions and opportunities from sustainability perspective (such as industry, material, technology etc.) since they accumulated a vast knowledge.
There are several supplementary files. They may be useful for certain audiences. I don’t think it is feasible to incorporate all of them to the paper. Author may upload these to a cloud drive and may give a URL link in the paper.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your dedication to reviewing our article and we appreciate your constructive feedback. Answering your question:
- My only major concern is about the formatting and spell check of the paper. Grammar and spelling should be extensively revised (even the abstract has problems. Line 14: “A systematic literature review of 472 was performed.” 472 what??).
Response:
We thank the reviewer for the comment. Specifically, in relation to the summary sentence, we complete the sentence by: A systematic literature review of 472 papers was performed.
The article was reviewed by the authors and two translators, in addition to the support of the word grammar checker and Grammarly to ensure the correction of possible grammatical errors.
- Formatting has many problems as well. Line spacing is inconsistent at some places, eg. Page 15, 1st paragraph. Spacing after full stops is inconsistent too.
Response:
We thank the reviewer for the comment. We made a general revision in the formatting of the article and eliminated the spaces between the (op#), inconsistency pointed out on page 15, for example.
- Additionally, table style of the paper is very different than the text itself. It is very hard to follow and read the tables.
Response:
We thank the reviewer for the comment. We modified the way data is arranged in tables to make it easier to follow and read.
- Authors wrap up the paper by stating that their framework identifies opportunities. However, these are not clear. I strongly suggest them to point certain directions and opportunities from sustainability perspective (such as industry, material, technology etc.) since they accumulated a vast knowledge.
Response:
We thank the reviewer for the comment. Indeed, the opportunities were displayed in different sections of the paper, as in sections 3.2.2 and 3.2.3. As suggested, we have categorized the opportunities and included a paragraph in section 4.1 “Insights and guidelines for practitioners”.
This SLR has revealed four categories of opportunities for investigation. The first category for designers and researchers is “new methods, tools, and packaging performance” (op#1,2,3,4,7, 16, 17 and 19 in sections 3.2.2 and 3.2.3). The second category “Collaboration for innovation in the packaging supply chain” (op#5,6,9 and 14) may concern all the lifecycle stakeholders. The third category is “policies, education and consumer perception” (op#8, 10 and 11) and the fourth category is “materials and technologies” (op#12, 13 and 15). All the categories are interdependent and experts inside the academy or industry may find occasion to develop innovative solutions to fill these gaps.
- There are several supplementary files. They may be useful for certain audiences. I don’t think it is feasible to incorporate all of them to the paper. Author may upload these to a cloud drive and may give a URL link in the paper.
Response:
We thank the reviewer for the comment. We created a link containing complementary materials on bibliographic analysis and content analysis in Appendix B and the tables were placed in Appendix C, after the list of references, at the end of the article. We indicate throughout the text how to visualize them.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Paper can be accepted in its current version. I still believe Tables 1-2-3 formatting are not good fit to this journal's template. (They could be in the same font size as the rest of the paper with less vertical lines)
