Digital Economy, Technological Innovation, and Environmental Quality Improvement

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article concerns an interesting topic which is "Digital Economy, Technological Innovation, and Environmen-2 tal Quality Improvement". The topic of the article is very timely and in my opinion fits into the thematic scope of the Sustainability journal.

From an editorial point of view, please review the English language. There are a few not necessarily well legible statements in the text, e.g .:

- line 42: "Improving environmental quality is not only important to improve quality of life ..." - imrpoving to improve,

- line 48: "From the point of view of factors affecting the quality of the environment, the direct factors of the impact of economic development on the quality of the environment from the economic point of view" etc.

From the substantive point of view, please refer to the following comments:

1. In the introduction, indicate the clear purpose of your research and argue for its necessity.

2. In line 48 you list the factors that influence economic development and the environment. It seems to me that the issue of approach to open innovation, which determines whether societies have an influence on services or products shaped towards them, should also be taken into account. Check: From the Classic Business Model to Open Innovation and Data Sharing — The Concept of an Open Car-Sharing Business Model.

What is more, apart from open innovations, the issue of corporate social responsibility is also particularly important, which is also connected with the issues of sustainable development. Please indicate it also in your factors, referring to: The analysis of progress CSR good practices areas in logistic companies based on reports Responsible business in Poland.

3. In the state of art, describe the economic situation of China and the development trends of the digital economy in more detail, pointing to specific statistics.

4. In the discussion, I miss a specific reference to the research of other authors on the development of digitization and how China compares with other countries. Refer to the study of foreign authors because at the moment the literature focuses only on Chinese items.

5. In conclusion, I miss an indication of the limitations of the research carried out and the authors' further research plans on the subject matter.

Author Response

Dear Reviewing Experts.

Thank you for your valuable comments, which have been very helpful. We have now made more detailed and in-depth revisions in accordance with the indicated requirements, starting with revising the textual expressions in lines 42 and 48, with line 42 being changed to "[Improving environmental quality] can not only improves quality of life ...... "( Line 46). Line 48 has been amended to read " Regarding influencing factors of environmental quality, economic studies have identified direct factors including ......"( Line 51). The recommendations made by the experts were then revised one by one, as follows.

Problem 1. In the introduction, indicate the clear purpose of your research and argue for its necessity.

Modify：In the first and fifth paragraphs of the introduction, the contents now reflect the clear purpose and necessity of the study are as follows:“In this context, studying whether the digital economy plays a role in improving environmental quality is of great theoretical and practical significance for further evaluating the social and economic benefits achieved as well as expanding knowledge of the factors improving environmental quality.”and“In summary, the existing literature provides rich results regarding the related research fields of digital economy and environmental quality, but less research focuses on the relationship between the two. Its impact on environmental quality is only analyzed from specific perspectives regarding the Internet or the digital economy, and the results are largely one-sided. Therefore, the digital economy still lacks theoretical and empirical analysis regarding the improvement of environmental quality; research on its path mechanism from the perspective of technological innovation is even more lacking.”

Problem 2. In line 48 you list the factors that influence economic development and the environment. It seems to me that the issue of approach to open innovation, which determines whether societies have an influence on services or products shaped towards them, should also be taken into account. Check: From the Classic Business Model to Open Innovation and Data Sharing — The Concept of an Open Car-Sharing Business Model.

What is more, apart from open innovations, the issue of corporate social responsibility is also particularly important, which is also connected with the issues of sustainable development. Please indicate it also in your factors, referring to: The analysis of progress CSR good practices areas in logistic companies based on reports Responsible business in Poland.

Modify：In the research on factors impacting environmental quality, the two factors of sharing economy and corporate social responsibility have been added. For details, refer to references [5] and [8] for details.

Problem 3. In the state of art, describe the economic situation of China and the development trends of the digital economy in more detail, pointing to specific statistics.

Modify：The first paragraph of the introduction now describes in detail the development of China's digital economy and the changes in its share of the total economy. The specific contents are as follows:“Simultaneously, China's digital economy is developing rapidly. In 2021, the scale of China's digital economy reached US77.1 trillion, ranking second in the world. The digital economy has become an important force driving China's economic advancement, providing new opportunities for high-quality economic development. From 2012 to 2021, the average growth rate of China's digital economy was 15.9%, and its share of GDP increased from 20.9% to 39.8%.……”

Problem 4. In the discussion, I miss a specific reference to the research of other authors on the development of digitization and how China compares with other countries. Refer to the study of foreign authors because at the moment the literature focuses only on Chinese items.

Modify：In the third and fourth part of the introduction, we now discuss the research process related to the digital economy and make a comparison between China and abroad; the specific contents are as follows: “Tapscott first proposed the digital economy concept in 1996. Early on, foreign scholars contributed theoretical research on its scientific concepts [13] and basic characteristics [14], but empirical research remains relatively scarce. The primary reason is the lack of a unified digital economy measurement index. With the digital economy’s development and the deepening of related research, measuring the digital economy has attracted the attention of government departments and academia domestically and abroad. Current efforts to measure the digital economy exist in two categories: The first is the direct method; that is, under a defined scope, the scale and volume of the digital economy in a certain area are counted or estimated.[15] The second is the comparison method, that is, based on multiple-dimensional indicators, the development situation between different regions is compared to judge the relative development of the digital economy or specific fields.[16] In academia, comparative methods are commonly used. Earlier, scholars such as Wunnava and Leiter[17] used this method to measure the level of digital economic development. Recently, with rapid digital development in China, empirical research has yielded rich results and focused more on investigating the digital economy’s impact, such as analyzing how it affects industrial transformation and upgrading,[1] employment quality,[18] and regional innovation[19].”

Problem 5. In conclusion, I miss an indication of the limitations of the research carried out and the authors' further research plans on the subject matter.

Modify：In the fifth paragraph of the introduction, we now mention the limitations of existing research and describe further research plans; the specific contents are as follows: “In summary, the existing literature provides rich results regarding the related research fields of digital economy and environmental quality, but less research focuses on the relationship between the two. Its impact on environmental quality is only analyzed from specific perspectives regarding the Internet or the digital economy, and the results are largely one-sided. Therefore, the digital economy still lacks theoretical and empirical analysis regarding the improvement of environmental quality; research on its path mechanism from the perspective of technological innovation is even more lacking. In view of this, this study combines the digital economy, technological innovation, and environmental quality improvement in the same research framework. First, we theoretically analyze the inherent mechanism of the three’s relationship; then, based on 2013–2020 China inter-provincial panel data, we test the digital economy’s impact on environmental quality, the intermediary role of technological innovation, and the differences in the intermediary role of different levels of technological innovation. We further analyze how regional heterogeneity in the digital economy affects environmental quality and provide new ideas for exploring the digital economy’s impact mechanism on environmental quality.”

In addition, based on the reviewers’ comments, the authors have made some independent enhancements to the revised manuscript.

1. Adding an introductory discussion of technological innovation in the fourth paragraph of the introduction, “However, compared with the Internet’s development, the digital economy is a broader conceptual category, and the logical mechanism of how it affects environmental quality requires further exploration. In addition, digital economic development is likely to produce a degree of technological innovation; for example, it has the characteristics of openness and integration, which can promote knowledge sharing, enable intelligent research and development, and increase the probability of technological innovation.[23][24] This can improve environmental quality by enhancing the energy utilization rate of polluting enterprises and inventing new energy sources.[25] To this end, exploring the key ways in which the digital economy effects environmental quality requires conducting systematic investigation in the context of technological innovation.”
2. The authors have also made their own enhancements to the manuscript regarding the previous lack of concise, accuracy, or natural expressions, as well as the formatting.

 

If there are any further corrections, I would appreciate the continued advice of the reviewers and editors.

 

With best regards!

Yours sincerely

 

                                                      November 8, 2022

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is a well documented study of how some devices of the digital economy (mainly technological infrastructure and technological innovation) impact environmental quality via reduction in some important pollutants, like industrial solid waste, industrial wastewater, etc.

The topic is of course tremendously relevant in today's world, so threatened by increasing levels of environmental degradation. Even though there has been abundant academic research in this area over the last couple decades, this article does make a marginal contribution not to be neglected. In particular, it considers a very recent period of time (2013-2020), in which most of the environmental alarms have been urgently activated. Secondly, the authors work with panel data from most Chinese provinces. Being China by far the most populated country in the world, this is particularly relevant for an environmental study.

The methodology is based on a simple fixed-effects regression model, which is suitable for its purpose. The control variables are adequately chosen, and not surprisingly include GDP level, industrialization level and provincial FDI.

For all these reasons, I recommend the publication of this article.

Author Response

Dear Reviewing Experts.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to review the paper and agreeing to its publication. I have continued to improve the document by rereading it in its entirety, correcting any elements that were insufficiently concise or standardized, or whose expressions lacked natural voice. I have also made some of my own enhancements in terms of spelling and formatting.

Yours sincerely

With best regards!

                                                      November 8, 2022

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

thanks for the changes made. Unfortunately, only some of them have been taken into account by you. However, there are some that you did not take into account. Please re-examine my previous review and complete the following points:

1. In line 48 you list the factors that influence economic development and the environment. It seems to me that the issue of approach to open innovation, which determines whether societies have an influence on services or products shaped towards them, should also be taken into account. Check: https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc8010036. What is more, apart from open innovations, the issue of corporate social responsibility is also particularly important, which is also connected with the issues of sustainable development. Please indicate it also in your factors, referring to: 10.20858 / sjsutst.2015.89.17.

2. In the state of art, describe the economic situation of China and the development trends of the digital economy in more detail, pointing to specific statistics.

3. In the discussion, I miss a specific reference to the research of other authors on the development of digitization and how China compares with other countries. Refer to the study of foreign authors because at the moment the literature focuses only on Chinese items.

Good luck!

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The article has been significantly revised and in my opinion is ready for publication.