Green Defense Industries in the European Union: The Case of the Battle Dress Uniform for Circular Economy
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments by reviewer.
Line 2. Circular Economy
Comment: Please reconcile the triple helix with the CE.. The article concluded by suggesting the triple helix + CE = Quintuple helix. Or is it the quadruple helix? Please kindly decide.
The case study is about BDU which is the Battle Dress Uniform. Why not have it entitled as Green Defense Industries in the European Union: The case of the Battle Dress Uniform for Circular Economy. Your Conclusions could dwell on the successful defense industries as they transform to CE. Just a suggestion.
Line 23 Systematic literature research
Comment: What are the findings in SLR?
Line 24. A case study research
Comment: What are the findings in the case study? Then reconcile the two findings.
Line 34. Introduction
Comment: Good Introduction. Very focused on environment. But I suggest the inclusion of the economic and social as well because sustainability normally refers to three dimensions.
Lines 72-77.
Comments: Will these 5 points be considered writing points in this article. Then draw conclusions could be drawn from these. However, these should be reconciled with the findings in SLR and case study. Then the ideas in this article are unified. This is just one approach to improve the quality of this article.
Line 105. Collaboration and complementarity
Comments: Yes. Reconcile the SLR and Case study findings.
Line 169. Case study research
Comments: Acceptable
Line 241. Industry, governments, universities and society
Comments: Why is society not found in Figure 2?
Line 257: sustainability and sustainable development
Comments: Please define sustainability. Do these refer to economic, environmental and social dimensions?
Line 278. Return
Comments: This is necessary. But will this negate the earlier key search words in SLR? If so, how many more articles were related to CE?
Line 308. Before the start of production
Comments: Please write about design or pre-design. This is important in CE.
Line 338. Environmentally friendly
Comments: This is good. Please also address how the BDU could address the economic and social dimensions holistically making up sustainability.
Line 400. Figure 4
Comments: Please consider capturing economic, environmental, and social in the beginning of the intro instead of limiting to technology and environmental only.
Line 408. Circular economy
Comments: CE = economic, environmental and social. What is the difference between CE and triple helix (institutions)? I suggest you can consider the adoption of CE by the triple helix (the institutions.)
Line 410. Quintuple helix
Comments: I suggest stick to the CE unless the authors want to reconcile triple helix (institutions) with CE.
Line 432. extending the lifespan of defense products
Comments: This is CE. Please include design or pre-design which is to enable multiple life-cycles. This is one of the definitions in CE literature
Line 444. Targets
Comments: What are the targets of CE? Are they not the three dimensions of economic, environmental and social? Please expand on these.
Line 462. universities, industry, governments, societies and environment
Comments: The first three are institutions, the latter 2 are components of CE. But CE should include economic as well. You can rewrite to reflect the three institutions are adopting CE. The case study example is the BDU.
Line 468. www.mdpi.com/xxx/s1
Comments: Not accessible for verification. Please provide access.
Author Response
Response to the reviewers
General comments
First, we would like to thank the time you devoted in providing insightful recommendations. We believe that your comments have improved the paper in many ways. We hope you agree that the revised version builds a stronger contribution. For a better understanding of the new version of the manuscript we used Word track changes.
We have taken the revision very seriously. If you feel that the revision has fallen short, we are entirely available to reformulate accordingly. The following paragraphs deal with the detailed comments you raised.
Reviewer 1
Reviewer point #1: Line 2. Circular Economy. Comment: Please reconcile the triple helix with the CE. The article concluded by suggesting the triple helix + CE = Quintuple helix. Or is it the quadruple helix? Please kindly decide.
Author response #1: The quintuple helix is a combination of triple helix + technology + environment (via the circular economy). The focus of this article is to introduce Technology and Circular Economy as helices. We are taking small steps and being very cautious in our arguments, as there is still no clear evidence in the literature that the defense industry operates within a quintuple helix. Throughout the text we have reinforced this argument to make it clear to readers. Thank you for your comment.
Reviewer point #2: The case study is about BDU which is the Battle Dress Uniform. Why not have it entitled as Green Defense Industries in the European Union: The case of the Battle Dress Uniform for Circular Economy. Your conclusions could dwell on the successful defense industries as they transform to CE. Just a suggestion.
Author response #2: Before submitting the article to the Journal, we contacted the academic editors to analyze the interest the article might generate for the Journal and Special Issue. The response was positive, although a better alignment with the SI was suggested. We will follow and respect the reviewer's recommendation and change the title as recommended.
Reviewer point #3: Line 23 Systematic literature research. Comment: What are the findings in SLR?
Author response #3: We fully agree with your comment. Unfortunately, the abstract can only have 200 words, and is therefore very limited. If you wish, we will include the SLR findings, but we will have to remove some of the existing information (e.g. from the case study) to comply with the MDPI rules.
Reviewer point #4: Line 24. A case study research. Comment: What are the findings in the case study? Then reconcile the two findings.
Author response #4: One of the most interesting results is that we found 6 R-strategies out of 10 in the BDU case (already included in the abstract). There are more interesting results that we would like to include, however we can not go beyond the 200 words.
Reviewer point #5: Line 34. Introduction. Comment: Good Introduction. Very focused on environment. But I suggest the inclusion of the economic and social as well because sustainability normally refers to three dimensions.
Author response #5: We have included your suggestion in the article. Much appreciated..
Reviewer point #6: Lines 72-77. Comments: Will these 5 points be considered writing points in this article. Then draw conclusions could be drawn from these. However, these should be reconciled with the findings in SLR and case study. Then the ideas in this article are unified. This is just one approach to improve the quality of this article.
Author response #6: This 5-point approach was included in the introduction to demonstrate that similar studies exist. There are points of convergence, although the approach presented is more generic and ours is empirical. We also agree that there is a need for a better alignment between the case and the existing literature. The book chapter that presented the 5-point approach was not part of the SLR results since we only consider Journal articles, however we have made new considerations in this revised version of the article to meet your comments. That is, throughout the text references are made to Massa (2022) that allows to corroborate our results.
Reviewer point #7: Line 105. Collaboration and complementarity. Comments: Yes. Reconcile the SLR and Case study findings.
Author response #7: It is a good observation, thank you. We reinforced this sentence with the argument that Table 1 shows this relationship, but also the design of a conceptual model (SLR) and its empirical validation (Case study) proves that complementarity.
Reviewer point #8: Line 169. Case study research. Comments: Acceptable
Author response #8: Thank you.
Reviewer point #9: Line 241. Industry, governments, universities and society. Comments: Why is society not found in Figure 2?
Author response #9: In the sentence, we argue that there is a need for holistic environmental studies that encompass industry, governments, universities and society – which is not yet the case. Society is not found in Figure 2, as is still limited to the triple helix (TH). This is due the existing literature within the defense industry is still focused on TH. However, the idea that the defense industry begins to operate in the context of a quintuple helix (civil society + environment) is gaining traction among academics. In our opinion, this argument is not yet mature enough, which justifies a focus on TH (excluding society and environment from the framework). We clarified this issue in the text.
Reviewer point #10: Line 257: sustainability and sustainable development. Comments: Please define sustainability. Do these refer to economic, environmental and social dimensions?
Author response #10: We have made the sentence clearer and defined the dimensions of sustainability in the introduction section.
Reviewer point #11: Line 278. Return. Comments: This is necessary. But will this negate the earlier key search words in SLR? If so, how many more articles were related to CE?
Author response #11: Excellent observation. However, one of the results of SLR is the lack of alignment between theory and real life. In fact, we considered that option. But after some discussion we thought it would be useful to inform the academic community about this lack of alignment. Interestingly, if you make a search on Scopus with "defence industry" and "circular economy" (Title-Abs-Key) you will get zero results. Thus, results can be found if you use generic terms, such as “environment”. If approved for publication, this article will be the first to use this combination of terms (“defence industry” and “circular economy”).
Reviewer point #12: Line 308. Before the start of production. Comments: Please write about design or pre-design. This is important in CE.
Author response #12: We followed your suggestion, thank you.
Reviewer point #13: Line 338. Environmentally friendly. Comments: This is good. Please also address how the BDU could address the economic and social dimensions holistically making up sustainability.
Author response #13: We followed your suggestion, much appreciated.
Reviewer point #14: Line 400. Figure 4. Comments: Please consider capturing economic, environmental, and social in the beginning of the intro instead of limiting to technology and environmental only.
Author response #14: In this case we limited to technology and environment since these are the fourth and fifth helix. However, we added the economic and social issue to bridge the gap with sustainability in the introduction, as previously suggested.
Reviewer point #15: Line 408. Circular economy. Comments: CE = economic, environmental and social. What is the difference between CE and triple helix (institutions)? I suggest you can consider the adoption of CE by the triple helix (the institutions.)
Author response #15: As mentioned earlier, the circular economy was framed within the environmental scope of the quintuple helix. Answering the question, the EC is an helix within the environmental scope. Quintuple helix = triple helix + technology + environment (via the circular economy).
Reviewer point #16: Line 410. Quintuple hélix. Comments: I suggest stick to the CE unless the authors want to reconcile triple helix (institutions) with CE.
Author response #16: We suggest that the defense industry can operate on a quintuple helix. But the field of study needs greater maturity. For this reason we focused our study on Triple Helix + Technology + Environment. In future research recommendations, we argue that more studies are needed to support the quintuple helix theory (with regard to the defense industry). We revised this issue and included additional text in that regard (see 4.1. theoretical and managerial contributions).
Reviewer point #17: Line 432. extending the lifespan of defense products. Comments: This is CE. Please include design or pre-design which is to enable multiple life-cycles. This is one of the definitions in CE literature.
Author response #17: We followed your suggestion, thank you.
Reviewer point #18: Line 444. Targets. Comments: What are the targets of CE? Are they not the three dimensions of economic, environmental and social? Please expand on these.
Author response #18: The targets of CE are mentioned in the Table 2. Target 1: Useful application of materials; Target 2: Extend lifespan of product and its parts; Target 3: Smarter product use and manufacture. We expanded the discussion regarding the targets.
Reviewer point #19: Line 462. universities, industry, governments, societies and environment. Comments: The first three are institutions, the latter 2 are components of CE. But CE should include economic as well. You can rewrite to reflect the three institutions are adopting CE. The case study example is the BDU.
Author response #19: Thank you. This was a mistake, as we refered to: universities, industry, governments (triple helix) + technology + environment = quintuple helix.
Reviewer point #20: Line 468. www.mdpi.com/xxx/s1. Comments: Not accessible for verification. Please provide access.
Author response #20: We submitted the manuscript and its supplements in a ZIP file. Now we realized that only the manuscript reached the reviewers. We asked the editor to share the supplements with the reviewers. Thank you for your patience.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is confusing because the authors talk about Smart Factories in the title and abstract. Still, the full systematic review was conducted looking for elements of circular economy in the EU war industry. What is the concept of Smart Factories, and what is the connection with the Circular Economy? The authors should answer this question by bringing more elements of Smart Factories into the article. If it is not the article's focus, this topic should not appear in the Title, Abstract, and keywords.
The frameworks presented in Figure 2 and Figure 3 are vague and do not indicate any path to the Circular Economy. The frameworks seem to me much more like a synthesis of what is presented in the analyzed studies and based on the empirical findings of the interviews. But what criteria should the defense industries in the EU follow to implement CE in their processes? What are the criteria or technologies that must be followed or implemented? What starting point should the government have?
A Roadmap could be developed, representing the actors in the supply chain of the defense industries in the EU, indicating which processes each of these actors act, what they provide and how they could contribute to a circular economy.
Finally, improve the quality of Figure 1. The article has a lot of potentials, but it needs to be explored a bit more. I wish you a great job.
Author Response
Response to the reviewers
General comments
First, we would like to thank the time you devoted in providing insightful recommendations. We believe that your comments have improved the paper in many ways. We hope you agree that the revised version builds a stronger contribution. For a better understanding of the new version of the manuscript we used Word track changes.
We have taken the revision very seriously. If you feel that the revision has fallen short, we are entirely available to reformulate accordingly. The following paragraphs deal with the detailed comments you raised.
Reviewer 2
Reviewer point #1: The article is confusing because the authors talk about Smart Factories in the title and abstract. Still, the full systematic review was conducted looking for elements of circular economy in the EU war industry. What is the concept of Smart Factories, and what is the connection with the Circular Economy? The authors should answer this question by bringing more elements of Smart Factories into the article. If it is not the article's focus, this topic should not appear in the Title, Abstract, and keywords.
Author response #1: You comment is much appreciated. In fact, it is in line with the reviewer 1. We decided to follow the recommendation of changing the title, abstract and keywords.
Reviewer point #2: The frameworks presented in Figure 2 and Figure 3 are vague and do not indicate any path to the Circular Economy. The frameworks seem to me much more like a synthesis of what is presented in the analyzed studies and based on the empirical findings of the interviews. But what criteria should the defense industries in the EU follow to implement CE in their processes? What are the criteria or technologies that must be followed or implemented? What starting point should the government have?
Author response #2: With regard to the criteria to be followed by the defense industries in the EU, when implementing CE in their processes, we made a recommendation for future research. Since the BDU case does not have generalization purposes. This option is very interesting but we need to conduct a broader research with quantitative data. With this article we wanted to present ground-breaking results, since there are no articles linking the EC and the defense industry. In fact, we did this search in Scopus (“defence industry” and “circular economy” in Title-Abs-Key) and we did not get any results. After the publication of this article, we hope to carry out further studies of quantitative nature. Regarding to what criteria or technologies should be followed or implemented, we have tried to expand on this question with results from other similar articles.
Reviewer point #3: A Roadmap could be developed, representing the actors in the supply chain of the defense industries in the EU, indicating which processes each of these actors act, what they provide and how they could contribute to a circular economy.
Author response #3: Your recommendation is very pertinent, however we will need more data. To carry out this research, we went to a theater of military operations, in order to collect data from the German and Dutch armed forces. As we mentioned earlier, we hope to carry out a comprehensive survey with several cases (ie defense materials) and in this way start mapping the supply chain. As a reference we cited the article from Soufani et al. (2018). A Roadmap to Circular Economy in EU Defence inspired by the Case of the Dutch Ministry of Defence.
Reviewer point #4: Finally, improve the quality of Figure 1. The article has a lot of potentials, but it needs to be explored a bit more. I wish you a great job.
Author response #4: We have followed your recommendation and improved the quality of all figures. Thank you for all your comments and recommendations.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Review: Green Defense Industries in the European Union: The Path to Circular Economy and Smart Factories
1. Clarify the main hypothesis of the paper within the abstract as well as within introduction (related to research question).
2. Please, eliminate the picture i.e. Figure 3., does not bring relevant point to the discussion.
3. Without an adequate measurement framework and robust statistics, evaluation of the green economy as well as circular economy is open to subjective reasoning. The evaluation of ‘green performance’ requires reliable statistical data. Please mention some of the relevant issues, approaches or databases that evaluate the concept on ‘green issues’; especially for the EU area (please mention in introduction or in literature review);
Stjepanović, S., Tomić, D., & Škare, M. (2017). A New Approach to Measuring Green GDP: A Cross-country Analysis. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 4(4), 574-590. http://dx.doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2017.4.4(13).
GGEI (2018). 2018 Global Green Economy Index. Green Policy Platform. Retrieved December 9, 2020, from https://www.greengrowthknowledge.org/research/2018-global-green-economy-index-ggei.
GGGI (2019). Green Growth Index; Concept, Methods and Applications. GGGI Technical Report No. 5, Global Green Growth Institute.
4. Could you elaborate more (few sentences) on the (possible) source of funding green defence industries; in general (for the EU) and specific (within your empirical framework in 3.3)
5. Page 6, line 251, you mention ‘Despite the efforts, the defence sector in Europe is 250
still far from being a holistic green actor'; what should be done in the short run to solve this problem.
6. Explain the limitations of your research and its reach or conclusions.
Conclusion: The paper is written concisely but without firm scientific core (lacks ‘strong’ analytical approach in respect to multivariate analysis of some kind or even specific econometric methods). The language is appropriate. In general, analysis is correctly carried out and thus contributes to practical judgements. I recommend its publication after minor revisions.
Author Response
Response to the reviewers
General comments
First, we would like to thank the time you devoted in providing insightful recommendations. We believe that your comments have improved the paper in many ways. We hope you agree that the revised version builds a stronger contribution. For a better understanding of the new version of the manuscript we used Word track changes.
We have taken the revision very seriously. If you feel that the revision has fallen short, we are entirely available to reformulate accordingly. The following paragraphs deal with the detailed comments you raised.
Reviewer 3
Reviewer point #1: Clarify the main hypothesis of the paper within the abstract as well as within introduction (related to research question).
Author response #1: According to the MDPI the abstract is very limited (up to 200 words), however, following your recommendation we clarified the research question in the introduction section.
Reviewer point #2: Please, eliminate the picture i.e. Figure 3., does not bring relevant point to the discussion.
Author response #2: We followed your recommendation and eliminated the previous figure 3.
Reviewer point #3: Without an adequate measurement framework and robust statistics, evaluation of the green economy as well as circular economy is open to subjective reasoning. The evaluation of ‘green performance’ requires reliable statistical data. Please mention some of the relevant issues, approaches or databases that evaluate the concept on ‘green issues’; especially for the EU area (please mention in introduction or in literature review);
Stjepanović, S., Tomić, D., & Škare, M. (2017). A New Approach to Measuring Green GDP: A Cross-country Analysis. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 4(4), 574-590. http://dx.doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2017.4.4(13).
GGEI (2018). 2018 Global Green Economy Index. Green Policy Platform. Retrieved December 9, 2020, from https://www.greengrowthknowledge.org/research/2018-global-green-economy-index-ggei.
GGGI (2019). Green Growth Index; Concept, Methods and Applications. GGGI Technical Report No. 5, Global Green Growth Institute.
Author response #3: We have cited and used the information you suggest above.
Reviewer point #4: Could you elaborate more (few sentences) on the (possible) source of funding green defence industries; in general (for the EU) and specific (within your empirical framework in 3.3).
Author response #4: Although the information is very limited for the specific case of BDU, we managed to include some information from the European Defence Agency (EDA).
Reviewer point #5: Page 6, line 251, you mention ‘Despite the efforts, the defence sector in Europe is still far from being a holistic green actor'; what should be done in the short run to solve this problem.
Author response #5: Thank you for making us think about this issue. We elaborated further on the question on how to resolve this issue.
Reviewer point #6: Explain the limitations of your research and its reach or conclusions.
Author response #6: We have followed your recommendation. We added that information in the last paragraphs of the sections 2.1. Systematic literature review and 2.2. Case study research.
Reviewer point #7: Conclusion: The paper is written concisely but without firm scientific core (lacks ‘strong’ analytical approach in respect to multivariate analysis of some kind or even specific econometric methods). The language is appropriate. In general, analysis is correctly carried out and thus contributes to practical judgements. I recommend its publication after minor revisions.
Author response #7: We really appreciated your contribution and motivating words. We hope that expectations regarding our revision do not fall short. Thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for considering all the comments and incorporating them into the text.
