Understanding the Determinants of Pro-Environmental Behavior among South Africans: Evidence from a Structural Equation Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a well written paper and captures both contemporary arguments within the discipline the paper is anchored. The authors raise and address a very important environmental issue in South Africa and the data they provide to support their arguments is appropriate and relevant. This is a paper that will make very interesting reading for the audience of this journal. However, before it is accepted for publication I wish to make a few observations which if addressed will make the paper more valuable to the audience it addresses.

1. The paper will benefit from professional proof reading, there are a number of editorial and spelling errors which need to be addressed. For example line 70 needs to be worked on and there are several other places in the document which need to be edited so that the paper makes grammatical sense.
2. Although there is some evidence of engaging with the literature, this section of the paper is rather thin and not comprehensive. My suggestion is that the authors need to broaden the literature and engage with PEB from a global, to the region and local contexts. there is reference to some studies in Singapore and Ghana but this is not a comprehensive engagement of the literature. It will add value to the paper if the authors can compare and contrast countries with similar social-economic indicators to understand how environmental behaviors and attitudes are shaped.
3. There is a whole range of literature on the role of institutional and policy frameworks in shaping community and individual environmental behavior. For example the work of Pulver and Ozen and Kusku will be valuable to engage with and see how this part of institutionalism and environmental behaviorism can be integrated in the paper.
4. Can the authors also relate their findings to existing literature. The paper has a very good empirical section which is mainly based on results from the regressions. but there is little effort linking these to the existing knowledge on the subject. The authors need to make these connections very clear and in simple way.

Otherwise this is a well written paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer. 

We thank you for the helpful suggestions. 

We have done the revisions that you have asked for and they are summarised in the attached file. The changes are highlighted in colour and you will also receive list of corrections from the assistant editor. The revised manuscript is attached for you. 

Isaac T. Rampedi 

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting paper that is written in a clear style and is presented well.  There are some areas where improvement is necessary, and some minor changes such as saying human rather than man in the text.  The paper is referenced appropriately and it is readable.

The areas where improvement is needed are;

• Research questions and hypotheses - they are introduced early in the paper but are not used as a way of structuring your Discussion and Conclusions.  You should answer your questions and address your hypotheses overtly in the latter part of the paper.
• Hypotheses - I am not sure all four are needed.  The logic of some of the hypotheses is not clear - why would you think that this is a likely outcome based on the literature?  It would be helpful to sharpen these and perhaps remove the less important one(s) so that the paper is focused and meets the word limits.
• Avoid repetition of text and table - this will also save some words.
• Include comparison data - If 59% of respondents were women, how does that statistic compare with the demographic data for South Africa?  Similar comparative material should be used for Black South Africans, and for the age groups, etc.
• There is no map of the South African provinces, so an international reader probably won't know how to understand the survey demographics in relation to the national demographics.  One suggestion is to include in brackets  each province's population as a proportion of the national population.  Another idea is to include only the major provinces and group the rest together to save space and words - if the province differences are not important (and they did not seem to be in this version of the paper) then why go into such detail in the table if it is not used in the Analysis and Conclusion?
• Try to sharpen the Conclusions.  Relating these to the research questions and hypotheses will help, but trying to be more specific than simply listing factors that appear to be influential will make the paper more useful to readers.
  
  The above suggestions are offered in the spirit of improving the paper and hopefully increasing its chances of both publication and future citations.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

We thank you for comments made. Herein is our responses. 

You will also receive the revised manuscript. 

Isaac T. Rampedi 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I would like to congratulate the authors' on responding to the reviewer feedback.  This is a much stronger paper.

I think that a number of smaller issues need to be checked but otherwise it is good.  These are;

Line 36  The end of the quote is not shown.

"       45  Change man/env to human/env

74  There should not be a question mark after " ... communicated matters".

80 "both" refers to two, but there are three countries named.  I suggest deleting the word "both".

152   Figure 1.  The % add up to 104% not 100%.  If this is a function of rounding rather than a typo then the impact of rounding should be noted.

152  Figure 1.  I suggest changing the title slightly to say "... showing actual population and the proportion of the national population".  At the moment it is unclear what the % figures relate to.  A reader could probably guess, but they should not have to do so.

 

The paper is much clear and easier for the reader to follow the key arguments.  Well done.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

We thank you for reviewer comments. We have addressed all of your comments and they appear better in the pdf copy of the edited and revised manuscript. There is also a cover letter that explains the changes that were done. 

Thanks,  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf