Sustainable Material Selection Framework: Taxonomy and Systematisation of Design Approaches to Sustainable Material Selection

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors address an interesting topic about a Sustainable Materials Selection Framework, the proposal covers an approach of interest to the scientific community, as well as a problem of global interest linked to sustainability. However, in my opinion, the authors should address some comments before publishing their manuscript:

• The introduction is sectioned, it is seen as a technical report and not as a scientific article. Authors are recommended to use a structured instruction: from general to particular, state of the art and contribution of the proposal.

• The bibliographic review is shared, it is recommended to use a more systematic and extensive bibliometric review to validate the results obtained.

• The authors define in a taxonomic process but it is required that more references be included to support the proposal, or that the scope and contribution of the proposal be broadly described.

• The objectives and criteria of analysis are not clear. For example, evaluating environmental impacts and linking them with life cycle analysis could include categories of impacts such as acidification, eutrophication and global warming. Authors must describe how impacts are defined and how a sustainable material will be defined, also describe all assumptions in their proposal developed in the manuscript.

• The scope of the proposal is quite interesting, and to form a methodology for the selection of sustainable materials, its application is broad. However, the constructivist proposal proposed by the authors is developed from a qualitative approach that in some sections is difficult to understand how to apply it to practical issues related to the section of materials classified as sustainable that may be applicable to technologies, processes or systems. Therefore, it is recommended to rethink the scope of the proposal or limit the research to a bibliographic review manuscript.

I hope these comments are useful to the authors.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the comments and suggestions provided. Below they will be dealt by points:

1. The authors believe that the introduction is already structured following a logic that leads the reader from the general to the particular (from line 29 to 40 introduction on the problem of sustainability and resources; line 41 to 61, focus on the role of design and in particular of materials in design; 62 to 84 focus on strategies and guidelines as a tool to guide design), state of the art (line 85 to 153 definition of what can be found in literature today and related issues) and finally objective and contribution of the article (line 154 to 166).
2. The authors are aware that the sources considered for the literature are not extensive, however, as the purpose of the article is to propose and validate a taxonomy, they believe that a systematic literature review is not necessary for this purpose. To better define this objective and the choice of limiting the literature, from line 185 to 190, a statement specifying this has been integrated.
3. As indicated in the previous point, from line 185 to 190, the purpose of the article has been specified more clearly, indicating how it is exploratory and propositional, making it broader.
4. As indicated in lines 418 to 434, the use of the framework remains open to the needs of the individual, allowing to explore and learn, while providing an easy-to-navigate 'map'. In the same lines, the intended use and these motivations have been further implemented to better explain the framework intention.
5. The aim of the work is to provide guidance for material selection at the design phase with a sustainable perspective, a quantitative data and strict approach would limit the designer at this stage. For this reason, a constructivist approach was identified as suitable for this research. To further specify the reasons behind this choice, lines 248 to 254 have been expanded.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article entitled " Sustainable Material Selection Framework: Taxonomy and systematisation of design approaches to sustainable material selection” is well organized and provides a lot of data.

Besides a very good documentation in the field, this work makes an important contribution to test taxonomy and systematization and therefore the article focuses on guidelines for material selection, resulting in a framework to guide material selection for sustainability.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the comments and compliments provided.

Reviewer 3 Report

Overview:

Design plays an important role in reducing the environmental footprint. The material choice affects sustainability, but ecodesign approaches use incompatible steps. This article proposes a classification into the Sustainable Materials Selection (SMaS) framework mapping tool to develop a material selection guideline.

Main points in this article:

Section 1 aims to develop a taxonomy to systematize guidelines for material selection. Subsection 1.1 discusses ecodesign perspectives from various authors and examples of their material-related strategies, ranging from general to more detailed. Subsection 1.2 shows the outlines of overlapping strategies from authors adopting a Design for Environment/Sustainability approach, referencing Design for X techniques. Section 1.3 emphasized that Covers attempts to link design strategies to circular economy concepts, though the depth of exploration and guidelines vary. Subsection 1.4 mentions additional material-focused approaches like Material Efficiency and Emotional Durability Design not tied to the main schools of thought.

Section 2 highlights that the method uses a qualitative analysis of the literature to classify and map strategies and approaches. A database was created, and the taxonomy was defined from most of them to specify (methods, objectives, systems, methods, guidelines, parameters/criteria).

Section 3 presents the results of the SMaS System developed by visually mapping the guidelines to the defined classification. Subsection 3.1 outlines five sustainability objectives identified from the analyzed perspectives. Section 3.2 discusses eight strategies that emerged from the analysis of the sources, evolving from the identified objectives. Subsection 3.3 notes twenty tactics highlighted, representing a mid-level cluster between strategies and guidelines in terms of specificity. Subsection 3.4 mentions the identification of 36 guidelines and 93 parameters/criteria, showing the increasing commonality and terminology inconsistencies at this detailed level.

Section 4 reflects on the need for a unified perspective on material selection, the developed taxonomy, and the SMaS Framework mapping guidelines. Limitations and future work are considered.

Section 5 concludes the taxonomy development to systematize inconsistent ecodesign terminology and the SMaS Framework mapping guidelines for material selection. The intended applications in academia and industry are outlined.

Recommendation and conclusion:

This manuscript do a research for a new, feasible issue, but the practical application may require adaptation. As a conceptual model and information design tool, the potential is there to aid designers if populated with the latest knowledge.

There are some points the authors need to clarify:

* In section 1 and 3, figure 1 and figure 4 need to improve the image quality.

* Figure 5, Figure 7, and Figure 9 are tangled, there needs to be more space between them. They should change the color uniformly.

* Is the taxonomy proposed in the conclusion meant to be generic across ecodesign, or only related to material selection guidelines?

The details of the manuscript are presented clearly and is well-organized, though the above-mentioned points need to be addressed to enhance its quality further.

The details of the manuscript are presented clearly, and the organization of the paragraph is quite good.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the comments and suggestions provided. Below they will be dealt by points:

1. The authors provided the publisher with the original images in high quality, these will be used in the final version of the article to improve readability.
2. Using the indicated software (RAWGraphs and Adobe Illustrator), the authors attempted to develop the graph in different configurations to limit tangling and increase flowability. The proposed version represents the most readable one. The choice of colours was also studied beforehand. The different approaches are differentiated by different colours, using other palettes or shades would have compromised readability by making the graph illegible especially in the parameters and criteria section. The use of colour within the framework was specified in lines 287 to 288.
3. As indicated by lines 435 to 439, the taxonomy could also be applied to guidelines that do not focus on material selection, but also other aspects, such as supplier selection (so meant to be generic). However, in order to simplify the work of defining the taxonomy in the first instance, it was only proposed on material selection.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors incorporated some modifications related to my comments.