In Search of Sustainable Economy Indicators: A Comparative Analysis between the Sustainable Development Goals Index and the Green Growth Index

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In their article, the authors raised a very important issue related to measuring the degree of implementation of sustainable development goals. Many other scientists point out that the indicators currently used are not always good. This also applies to the appropriate selection of variables. New indicators and new groups of variables are needed. The methodology used may also pose a problem in assessing the degree of sustainable development. The article is well written. However, I have a few comments that may help to improve it.

1. The summary is too long. It should have max. 200 words.

2. Describe whether there were any limitations to the study: data access, data quality, appropriate methodology, etc.?

3. The article should clearly state the hypotheses or research questions.

4. On line 937 (end of paragraph) the sentence begins "Germany is the…." . It is not finished.

5. Tables 1-8 should be formatted in accordance with the publisher's requirements.

6. In table 3 and table 8, in the case of the column "Relevant to SDG No." in the case of several references, entries appear, e.g. 12/15/. If this applies only to SDG 12 and SDG 15, there should be no slash at the end, i.e. it should read 12/15. That extra last slash suggests that there should be something behind it.

7. On line 1016 there is "Reference" and it should be "References".

8. In the list of references, item 48 (line 1109) reads: "78. Long, X.; Ji, X. Economic Growth….” What does the number 78 mean?

9. On the graphs presented in Figures 4-12, label the horizontal axis and the vertical axis.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable feedback.

I have responded to your comments in the attachment. I also updated the document based on the received feedback by the reviewers.

Thanks again for your valuable feedback

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting paper providing useful insights on sustainability, sustainable development and sustainable economy indicators with an empirical application. From my perspective the paper is publishable. Two suggestions for a minor revision could involve:

- Consider sub-indicators of SDGI and GGI in order to understand why the aggregated indicators are changing over time and different values of time

- A consideration of sub-indicators may also add further insights about policy implications at a more detailed level

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable feedback,

I have considered the sub- indicators and I have provided these sub-indicators in the appendix. I am planning to give further analysis of these sub indicators in a future paper.

Regards

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The purpose of this paper is to review and analyse metrics that effectively measure progress towards a sustainable economy. The Authors provide a comparative analysis, mapping promising and relevant metrics identified through an extensive literature review against identified sustainability features.

The relevance of the topic arises from the need for effective tools, such as indicators and metrics, for managing sustainable development strategies and decision-making, emphasizing the importance of addressing existing issues in the progress assessment system.

The article is very interesting and promising. The Authors have done a tremendous job of collecting and processing primary data. However, the idea of the article is not clear enough. It would have been better to link the objectives with the conclusions. The abstract and introduction state: "This paper aims to bridge this gap by identifying and evaluating metrics that effectively measure progress toward SE" (lines 16-18, and 46-47), while the conclusions state "... rather than reinventing the wheel and developing a new index, adopting and building upon one of these indices is considered more efficient since they have already been developed by world-class experts and followed the highest standards of statistical and scientific methods (lines 998-1101). The quoted sentences are not fully agreed upon, as the statement in lines 998-1101 casts doubt on the conduct of this study. It would be worth changing the wording.

It is also recommended to pay attention to the following suggestions:

1.       The Introduction section could have been improved, as it seems that the paragraphs (lines 46-74) do not make a significant scientific contribution due to duplicated text.

2.       In the Methodology section, the general approach to the study was described in detail, but attention should also have been paid to the toolkit that enabled the processing of the indicators collected for the study.

3.       The Authors claim that the selection of the six countries for comparative analysis in this study is based on the carefully considered criteria outlined in the Methodology section. This is true. However, it is not clear why Norway was chosen as the representative country for Northern Europe, Singapore as the representative country for Southeast Asia, Germany as the representative country for Western Europe and South Korea as the representative country for East Asia.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable feedback.

I have responded to your comments in the attachment. I also updated the document based on the received feedback by the reviewers.

Thanks again for your valuable feedback

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The comments and suggestions made in the review have been taken into consideration.