End-of-Life Scenarios for Mass Timber: Assumptions, Limitations and Potentials—A Literature Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsIn their study, the authors performed a literature review on the end of life scenarios for mass timber. The topic addressed in this article is worthy of investigation, as appropriate use of mass timber at the end of life may contribute to the implementation of circular economy goals. The paper could contribute to the literature and practice, and might be interesting to the readers; however, revision is recommended before its publication:
1. Introduction:
- The authors have to provide a clear definition of mass timber. Some engineered timber products are mentioned on page 2 (GLT, CLT, LVL); however mass timber covers huge variety of other products, such as Nail-laminated timber (NLT), Dowel-laminated timber (DLT), Laminated strand lumber (LSL), Parallel strand lumber (PSL), etc.
- The structure of the paper must be consistent; therefore, literature analysis results (lines 56–67 and 82–87) could be provided in Section 3.
- Figure 2 could be explained in more detail. In addition, the text in subsections, e.g., A1: Raw Material Supply should be written from left to right.
- The authors have to make more efforts to describe the novelty of the paper. Did other authors publish similar literature reviews?
2. Materials and Methods
- Please provide arguments why only European-based context papers were selected for the analysis? For instance, mass timber is very popular in North America.
- Line 121: selected papers are not provided in Appendix 1 but in Supplementary Materials.
3. Results
- More literature review results could be provided. For instance, the authors could analyze the countries, authors, most cited papers, etc.
- Line 138: plural – stages A1–A3
- Line 188: Please define an abbreviation GWP.
4. Discussion
- Discussion is missing. The authors could summarize all implications and future research directions from the study.
5. Limitations
An important limitation that the paper represents only European-based context was not mentioned.
6. The references must be formatted according to journal style.
7. The text must be revised. There are numerous technical and editorial errors.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript focuses on End of life scenarios for mass timber: assumptions, limitations and potentials. I think it can be considered for possible publication in the journal after a minor revision. Some recommendations are as following:
1. In the introduction, further details can be provided on the specific challenges currently faced by the construction industry in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, such as technological bottlenecks or difficulties in policy implementation.
2.The article mentions the methods of "circular thinking" and "life cycle assessment (LCA)", but lacks specific application cases or quantitative analysis examples. Suggest adding actual case studies in the main text to demonstrate the specific practices of LCA in building material selection and its contribution to emissions reduction.
3.The Scopus literature search results show a growing trend in research on keywords such as "Mass Timber" in recent years, but lack in-depth analysis of these literature. It is suggested to further refine the classification of retrieved literature, such as by research topic (emission reduction potential, mechanical performance, economy), research region (Europe, North America, Asia), or technical methods (LCA, structural optimization) for inductive analysis.
4.The article mentions that static LCA assumes that all emissions occur simultaneously, while dynamic LCA considers the temporal distribution of emissions, but lacks a systematic comparative analysis of the two methods. It is recommended to clarify the advantages and disadvantages of dynamic LCA compared to static LCA in evaluating the impact of large-scale wood lifecycle through specific data or cases.
5.The description of the four EoL scenarios (reuse, recycling, incineration, and landfill) in the article is too qualitative and lacks quantitative analysis to support the conclusion.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis is a second review of the manuscript. The authors significantly improved the manuscript according to recommendations. However, minor revision is still recommended before its publication:
1. Line 89: “…there are some literature reviews….” Please provide references.
2. Line 109: is (Laminated Veneer Lumber) included in the keywords? If not, definition is not needed as it was included before.
3. Line 135. Must be Figure 2. Line 150 – Figure 3.
4. Line 681–682. Articles are provided in Supplementary Materials, not in Appendix A. Please delete.
5. The style of references was improved but still does not fully correspond to journal requirements.
6. There are many technical and editorial errors. Some examples are provided below:
- Title. First letters must be capitalized. Delete the full stop at the end.
- Line 44, space before [2]
- Line 47, space before “Therefore…”
- Line 54, full stop after [9]
- Line 95, space after (2013)
- Lines 135, 150, 427. Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4 not Figure. 2, Figure.3, etc.
- Line 135. Space before [24], etc.
Please carefully revise all text.
Author Response
Thank you for the comments. We agree with all comments. References, technical and editorial errors were also corrected.
