Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper discussed the authors’ effort to develop a case study of carbon emission analysis from the hotel building. This topic is of interests to this journal. However, there are some concerns about this paper and require authors to address before further re-evaluation.

1.     L80:  the authors state that the hotel is considered as one of the most demanding energy consumers. Based on commercial building energy survey (CBECS), https://www.eia.gov/consumption/commercial/reports/2012/energyusage/, you can see the lodging is not at the top for energy usage intensity. However, maybe if you could justify the luxury hotel based on field data, please elaborate on this.

2.     L64:      IPCC shall be spelled out when it appears in the first place in this paper.

3.     L85: Figure 1. The source IPCC says 2014, while inside the Figure 49 Gt CO2 eq says 2010. Are this 2014 report analyzing the data collected in 2010? Is there any newer data analysis? And do you have copyright for this figure from IPCC (2014)

4.     L148: the author mentioned an electronic template that was developed to collect the required data for quantifying carbon emission. I suggest the authors put the template as an appendix and show it as part of the methodology so that readers could understand how the data is collected in the field and what are they specifically.

5.     L162: in Table 2: the scope 1 and scope 2 is a little confusing to me. Are you talking about the mobile energy station data (S1), HVAC system related (refrigerant), and utility meter data (S2), freshwater/wastewater processing related energy?  Where does the hot water pump belong to?

6.     L179: for all the emission estimation formula, there is no nomenclature.  Please add that.

7.     Can you present a sample of raw data, and the conversion factor (parameters that you used to convert electricity purchased from the power grids to the equivalent carbon emission? In order to repeat the calculation for other researchers, please provide the raw energy data (sample set), the conversion factor, and an example of showing how you did the calculation.

8.     L197: When you compare the hotel at Sri Lankan with the one in Hong Kong, could you please provide more raw energy data comparison from the end-use, i.e., total electricity, total gas, HVAC energy, hot water usage, lighting, plug load. Otherwise, we don’t know if a similar GHG emission is due to the same energy usage or different energy usage with more renewable energy generation from one site. Understanding those different energy and resource end-uses will help to develop the mitigation plan better.

9.     L219: Format of Figure 4 needs to be improved. Please refers to some published paper that has a flow chart in it.

10.  In Table 3, 4: hotel B and C have similar occupancy profile, but very different water usage (Hotel C is 200% off Hotel B for scope 3). Could you please explain the reason behind this?

11.  Why these five hotels are selected for analysis, are they typical and can represent most of the hotel building operation? 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your valuable comments.

This has been adjusted properly in the paper. US Energy Information Administration [5] has recognized food service, inpatient hospital and food sales buildings as the most energy demanding buildings. Lodging is listed as the 5^th most energy demanding buildings. Hotels, a combination of food service, food sales and lodging therefore can be recognized as a major contributor to global climate change due to the high level of carbon emissions resulting from high energy contribution.  Done. The figure has been modified and the issues mentioned has been addressed in the paper. The template could not be used as an appendix. Important details of the template has been included in the paper.  Scope 1; GHG emissions caused by stationary sources of the hotel. eg. Combustion of fuel of boilers, Scope 2: GHG emissions caused by Consumption of purchased electricity and gas. Notations have been added to the paper.  Since these data include information of the hotels, authors feel it is improper to include raw data. Kindly please apologize for the inability to add raw data. This study does not compare Sri Lankan hotels with Hong Kong hotels. It is just used as a reference. Done. Hotel B uses sub meters to monitor water usage and controlling measures. These hotels were used because they represent many of the facilities provided in Sri Lankan hotels and they are located in the Colombo suburb which is the commercial capital of Sri Lanka. Once again thank you very much for your precious time.Best Regards

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you so much for submitting your paper to Buildings.

The topic is very interesting, but in my opinion the paper needs some improvement before being published.

The abstract does not report the main results and the innovativeness of the methodology used.

The methodology should be improved.

A climate section is missing, which greatly influences the performance of buildings.

Other studies analyze the hotels, focusing on warm climate, as for example:

"Economic and thermal evaluation of different uses of an existing structure in a warm climate"  https://doi.org/10.3390/en10050658

"Nearly Zero Energy Buildings Application in Mediterranean Hotels" https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2013.11.023

 

The criterion with which the buildings were selected is not clear.

The manuscript has many sections similar to the paper:

Joseph H.K. Lai, Carbon footprints of hotels: Analysis of three archetypes in Hong Kong, Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 14, 2015, Pages 334-341, ISSN 2210-6707, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2013.09.005.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your valuable time. 

Abstract has been modified with important details of the research. 

Methodology has also been improved accordingly. 

The study was not based on any climate situation. Since Sri Lanka is a country which does not have any climatic impacts and has a mild weather all along the year. Therefore, we considered that climate section is not required for this research. 

Colombo is the commercial capital of Sri Lanka and the selected hotels represented luxurious hotels with major amenities. Therefore,  five hotels were selected which could represent majority of the hotels and the facilities provided. 

Paper was based on the paper of J.K.Lai and did use several guidelines from the paper.

Thank you once again for your precious comments.

Best regards

Reviewer 3 Report

This study is focussing on carbon emission of hotel buildings. Research topic is interesting, but significant improvement is needed for publication. 

 

First of all, purpose of the study is not deacribed clearly. Is this study performed to establish new methodology to estimate carbon footprint or to draw the strategy reducing carbon emission of hotel buildings? Since authors do not mention the research gap of the paper, it is very difficult to understand whole contents of the paper.

 

Electronic template is used for gathering essential information to estimate carbon emission of buildings. Please describe details about electronic templates. Which parameters are included in the electronic template?

 

Print quality of all equations are poor. It seems that authors use screenshot of them. Please modify equations using functions provided by word.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your valuable comments. 

The purpose of this study is to explore the carbon emissions of the Sri Lankan hotels and thereby develop an outline to prepare a standard emission reporting guideline which can be used to report and maintain the carbon emissions of hotels. 

Template was included with operational elements of the hotels such as grading; age; the number of floors and guest rooms, occupancy rate, food and beverage outlets and the total floor area of the hotel. Next part of the template was prepared to gather data related to the following areas which considered a period of 12 months; (a) consumption of diesel (e.g., for backup power generation); (b) metered readings of water consumption; (c) inventory levels of refrigerants; (d) electricity consumptions and metered readings of electricity used; (e) gas consumption details; (f) inventory details of paper, paper usage statistics and details of paper recycling.

Thank you once again for your precious time. 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

10.  In Table 3, 4: hotel B and C have similar occupancy profile, but very different water usage (Hotel C is 200% off Hotel B for scope 3). Could you please explain the reason behind this?

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Please see if you address this comment.  I cannot find it in your response to the review comments. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking your time to review this paper.

As I have mentioned, Hotel C uses several water monitoring and conservation methods compared to Hotel B which has resulted in less emissions from Scope 3. Moreover, Hotel C has a waste water recycling method which also result in less water consumption.

Regards

 

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

All revisions have been carried out

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for spending your valuable time to review this paper. 

Regards

Reviewer 3 Report

Accepted.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking your valuable time to review this paper. 

Regards.