From a Techno-Economic towards a Socio-Technical Approach—A Review of the Influences and Policies on Home Energy Renovations’ Decisions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

First, I would like to congratulate the authors for the effort they put into this work. The paper presents an up-to-date topic and relevant issues in terms of carbon and sustainable strategies. The article's subject corresponds well with the scope of the Buildings journal of MDPI.

Regardless of the appropriate level of the paper, there are comments that authors are kindly asked to consider improving and organize the paper better:

1.    Please consider English proofreading, some minor mistakes and misspellings

2.    Divide chapter discussion and conclusions into separate chapters.

3.    Please add in the introduction the paper summary, to understand its order.

4.    Please describe which European countries are you referring, right now, they are at different level of incorporating the decarbonization law in households.

5.    Please add in the introduction paper workflow, for better understanding.

6.    I want to congratulate the authors on the references being up-to-date and presenting current knowledge on the subject.

It is my great pleasure to support such an excellent paper as a valuable contribution to this field. I recommend its publication after minor adjustments.

Author Response

All the important changes and improvements are outlined in yellow along the text.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors:

1. Please consider English proofreading, some minor mistakes and misspellings

2. Divide chapter discussion and conclusions into separate chapters.

Please see Chapters 7 and 8.

3. Please add in the introduction the paper summary, to understand its order.

Please see Introduction Chapter.

4. Please describe which European countries are you referring, right now, they are at different level of incorporating the decarbonization law in households.

See Subchapters 4.4, 5.2 and 6.3. (in yellow)

5. Please add in the introduction paper workflow, for better understanding.

Please see Introduction Chapter.

6. I want to congratulate the authors on the references being up-to-date and presenting current knowledge on the subject.

Thank you.

Reviewer 2 Report

Some points must be clarified:

*How many papers were analyzed? Did you combine keyword in databases?

*Which criteria was adopted to select papers?

*There is a completely lack of methods, in explaining what is executed within the paper.

*Do not write discussions and conclusions in the same topic.

*What were the main gaps your research covered?

*What are the main study limitations?

Author Response

All the important changes and improvements are outlined in yellow in the text.

*How many papers were analyzed? Did you combine keyword in databases?

This paper stemmed from an invitation made by the Buildings Editorial Office to publish a “Perspective” Paper, about 2 months before the proposed submission date. We were informed that “Perspective” papers have the aim to be a showcase on current developments in a specific field, with the structure being similar to a review and with the emphasis placed on personal assessment of the authors. We wrote the review on a topic we’re familiar with as researchers, and a topic that we consider needs reviewing right now. Therefore, many of the references used where already collected along an ongoing process of literature search and not in one step turn. What we did was mainly identify literature gaps and up-date the list of references we already have (mainly for the last 2-3 years)

Due to the type of paper required, its aim, our experience on the subject and the short time to write it, we have select a narrative review.

We followed:

• guidelines from literature about narrative reviews, mentioned in Chapter 2,
• and also research support platforms, such as these ones: https://learning.edanz.com/systematic-scoping-narrative/

https://learning.edanz.com/edanz-four-step-review-writing-method/

Despite in narrative reviews sources being normally obtained from a non-predefined search and collation strategy, as, for example, this one  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378778818302937?via%3Dihub

some procedures were undertaken to ensure the quality of search. See Chapter 2, please.

*Which criteria was adopted to select papers?

We followed guidelines for this type of review from literature about narrative reviews, mentioned in Chapter 2, which point out that narrative reviews are more descriptive and provide authors’ subjective perspectives on a focused but broader topic, being the selection criteria normally non-explicitly stated for data evaluation and synthesis. However, some procedures were undertaken to ensure the quality of selection of references and a description was made in Chapter 2.

*There is a completely lack of methods, in explaining what is executed within the paper.

Please see Introduction, where was made a summary/workflow, and see also Chapter 2 - Research Methods.

*Do not write discussions and conclusions in the same topic.

See Chapters 7 and 8.

*What were the main gaps your research covered?

Please see the Introduction Chapter.

*What are the main study limitations?

It is explained in Chapter 7.

Thank you.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is interesting, however, is hard to read because is very extensive. You should try short it a little bit, excluding some tables or figures.

Author Response

The paper was shortened a bit in the majority of chapters eliminating sentences that seemed redundant to us or combining sentences. English was improved. Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx