Best Practices to Support the Transition towards Sustainable Logistics from the Perspective of Brazilian Carriers

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The contribution of the work is expressed in the following:

- a multidisciplinary approach to the research problem with a critical review of the existing solutions offered.

- a comprehensive approach to a multidimensional problem is responsibly determined on the territory of Brazil.

- coverage of research in order to review and define the results of previous research. - the achieved results are presented.

- On the basis of the presented coverage of the literature, it can be concluded that a critical approach to the existing models was carried out.

- Clearly presented work results.

Dear authors, Thank you for sharing your work "Sustainability in logistics best practices proposal: The Brazilian carriers' perspective". I think your approach showed high potential.

Let me start with some general comments that would improve the quality of the work:

1. Line 269: The original text written in Chinese characters should be translated into English (and the parentheses should remain in their original form).

2. Line 114-118: What are the limits of minimizing the negative impact of freight traffic without jeopardizing the quality of freight transport.

3. Line 321. Marking Pictures according to order. (It stands at 1. I think it should be 6.)

4. It is necessary to supplement the title number with more recent dates. Such an interesting topic has probably been analyzed by other authors.

5. As a proposal, you can consider the possibility of performing an analysis from the economy segment (investment and benefits) in order to support others to join the initiative.

6. You may consider trying to quantify certain indicators in some subsequent works. In this way, the conditions would be created for a significant reduction of subjectivity during analysis and provide the possibility to improve the decision process between certain improvement solutions by applying certain multi-criteria decision-making methods.

Author Response

Please find the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for letting me read your paper. It is an interesting look at sustainability efforts in the Brazilian logistics sector. However, I believe that if you address the shortcomings listed below the paper will improve considerably.

Title: Rethink the title. It seems like the message of the study is lost.

Abstract: The abstract should contain an explanation of the method.

Introduction:

Second sentence lacks a source – and it is likely not the case that all freight transport companies strive to enhance sustainability.

The introduction is thin on sources.

Considering that the paper focuses on Brazil it is necessary to present readers unfamiliar with the Brazilian market with an introduction to said market. I thus recommend that you write an introduction that makes the reader interested in the particular challenges found in the Brazilian setting. A firm understanding of the contextual challenges also helps international readers to understand the results better. Comparing the Brazilian market with international examples could also be a further motive for the study.

I find the first aim to be OK but the second and third aims could be rephrased to clarify what is meant. E.g. “for their implementation” and “support decision-makers to implementing…”

The intervention part is not clearly motivated in the introduction. (Explain who is making interventions and why, as well as why this is something that is necessary to advise on.) It also seems like the use of the word “intervention” in the purpose differs from how it is used later in the paper. My impression from the purpose is that intervention refers to policy support directed toward corporate decision-makers but in the text I get the impression that intervention refers to what corporate managers do (see line 283-287). Please clarify.

Since the paper is complex I suggest that you rewrite the disposition so that it clarifies what is going to happen in the paper.

Materials and Methods

It is unnecessary to start with a description of the content of the section when you just had such a description at the end of the previous section.

Line 101-106 lists different projects/policy documents/practical reviews etc. not academic studies? -> Rephrase.

How were the best practices identified and selected (how was the review conducted)?

Avoid using a master thesis (Chili et al 2019 – source 44) as a source for a statement that is likely to be supported by peer reviewed publications. Please see if you can find an alternative source.

Is 2.3 supposed to be in a separate section? Cursive non-bold heading if not. 2.3 also needs to be explained a little bit more in detail.

Result

Why use precious words to describe what is going to happen in this section when you already did it in the introduction?

Describe the businesses C1-18 more in detail, either as a group or as individual companies. Now it is very difficult to understand why they differed. Maybe provide a brief anonymous description of each company (rough span of annual turnover, amount goods shipped, type of services provided etc) in an appendix.

Also describe the scoring more in detail.

Please contextualize and explain 3.5 Other best practices.

Describe the intervention part a bit more in detail.

Discussion/Conclusion

It is necessary add a discussion that makes stronger links between the results and previous research.

Furthermore, discuss the implications of the results for the Brazilian market as well as an international logistics context.

General:

The method is poorly described, and I advise to present in one single section.

Please link the paper more tightly to the Brazilian situation by describing the market and policy context. That will make the paper much more interesting and valuable. The paper also needs a proofreading.

Are all the self-references necessary?

Avoid superlatives, as well as verbose and vague statements.

Author Response

Please find the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for addressing the points that I raised. Please read through the paper carefully before submission since there are still formatting issues  (tables with wrong numbers).

Regards

None