Urban Food Waste: A Framework to Analyse Policies and Initiatives
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
This study could have relevant implications for researchers and policy makers. However, the current version of methods and analytical framework (currently, the “materials and methods” section) does not provide the reader with required tools to understand how the analysis is carried out and to replicate the study.
This section shall be carefully revised by considering the following suggestions (at least):
- Please objectively report the review process that leads to the selection of the retrieved papers; check out these pages
- https://training.cochrane.org/trials-search-co-ordinator-handhook/6-author-support/65-documenting-search-process-and-reporting
- http://prisma-statement.org/Default.aspx
- The way how leading practices are selected is not clear to me; e.g. in the results section you mention a sample (?)
- The way how the relation with SDGs is identified is not clear to me
- The rationale behind the coding framework adopted in the results section shall be reported and documented
- The way how the proposed assessment framework is applied and its interpretation shall be presented as well? E.g. what qualitative and/or quantitative indicators are needed, for example for “circular economy”, under “area of intervention”? Figure 4: what do line width stands for?
Conclusions: this section does not provide any clear recommendation for policy makers or researchers
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for the precious comments and suggestions, which were all considered and included in the new version of the manuscript.
We attach a file including the answers to each specific questions.
Many thanks again,
The authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
the topic is presented with a good style and I'm favourable to its publication.
However, I think that the authors can give a major enhance focusing their attention on three aspects:
- agriculture sector but also manufacturing can be interpreted within of a more complex system of sectors (i.e. bioeconomy) i) https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/6/2460 ii) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919312273
- the following step of this work can be to compare several actions through a quantitative approach in order to understand their relevance (e.g. multicriteria analysis) I dn't require to play in this work however because it asks time
- what is the need of firms towards this topic? Also for this part it was useful to collect some data provided by experts. So, I ask a critical analysis from the authors to explain this concept
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for the precious comments and suggestions, which were all considered and included in the new version of the manuscript.
We attach a file including the answers to each specific questions.
Many thanks again,
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
RESOURCES – 14 July 2020
The article proposes a framework for managing food waste in modern societies with emphasis on the role of cities in this issue. The practices of 40 cities in 16 European countries were analysed and used to build the food waste management and assessment framework. Three main dimensions were established, namely i) policies and initiatives, ii) interventions and iii) actors. The practices of the European cities were analysed within the proposed framework and in light of UN the Sustainable Development Goals.
General comments:
The article provides an interesting contribution for the management of the problem of food waste that will allow the setting of balanced policies and initiatives in several areas of intervention and with the participation of relevant actors. The article is well organised, well written and the results of the analysis show the weight of each factor in the three main dimensions of the framework and the impact upon the SDG. The discussion further explores the contributions of the work. In my opinion recommendations concerning the development of balanced policies and practices are lacking in the end of the Discussion and conclusions section.
Specific comments
- Figure 4 on page 12 is totally incomprehensible, I suggest the authors provide an example on how it may be used or interpreted.
- In Figure 5, page 14, is there meaning for the area of the rectangles? Please provide explanation.
- The article could be significantly improved by including an example of assessment of a set of policies, practices and actors by means of the proposed framework
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for the precious comments and suggestions, which were all considered and included in the new version of the manuscript.
We attach a file including the answers to each specific questions.
Many thanks again,
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Thank you for the very good overview and assessment of food waste policy across European cities! There is only few to add due to your already excellent work within your paper. Please find my detailed comments below.
Scientific comments:
line 114ff: You mention that your study focuses on European cities. That is fine for me but it would be interesting to hear more about if there is also information available about non-European cities tackling food waste in similar way. This information could be just one short sentence here and I suggest to add something about this issue to the conclusion section (see separate comment).
line 140: One example of regulatory policy is setting specific targets for FW reduction and I wonder if there is information available from cities which implemented such targets. It would be interesting to discuss how many of the reviewed cities have “only” adopted the SDG 12.3 target and if there are cities with more ambitious targets, e.g. try to halving FW along whole supply chain and not only at retail and consumers levels. In addition, it would be interesting if there is any city with a dedicated monitoring system as you suggest within your recommendations to evaluate the implemented targets and measures.
Figure 2: Would be great to have the number of cases per figure part available.
Figure 3: I suggest to use the same order for the listed items as they are listed in the text. Instead of “transport companies” the term “public transport” could be used as it is also used in the text. I wonder which “enablers” are meant as most of those described in the text are already listed here.
Figure 4: Just to be sure – the more cases you found within your assessment, the thicker the line in the diagram?
line 327: I suggest to place the bracket after “…leading cities…” as the supplementary materials lists the cities and not the framework which is displayed in figure 4.
line 328ff: For me it is confusing that the ranking of Table 1 is not used within the text and the format (bold) of the described policies differs here.
Figure 5: Just to be sure – the more cases you found with your assessment, the larger the SDG area in the diagram?
line 459ff: Here you could also insert a brief discussion related to the issue if any city has implemented more advanced targets (e.g. reaching minus 50 % earlier than 2030, halving FW along all FSC etc.) and if there are any evaluation schemes in place.
line 471: Is there any recommendation for non-European cities in order to implement similar policies or is the work within EU cities facilitated in a better way by EU policy than in other regions? It would be great to have more insight on global level on that aspect.
Comments on notation:
lines 270 ff: There is a repetition within the first few lines related to the two new types of policy which could be rephrased.
line 405: There is a comma missing after “…(SDG13)”.
line 407: There is a surplus “S” at the end of the line.
line 417: There is a misspelling with “new”.
line 421: There is a comma missing after “…Dublin”.
footnotes 1-6: I recommend to add full stops at the end of each footnote.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for the precious comments and suggestions, which were all considered and included in the new version of the manuscript.
We attach a file including the answers to each specific questions.
Many thanks again,
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
Please find below my comments to the new version of the manuscript.
Please carefully revise the methods and results section and the logical relationship between them.
The methods section does not allow to replicate the study. For example, screening criteria should cover the type of sources included in the search (e.g., journals, books, refereed, grey, …), the included/excluded journals, the languages, the countries, the time frame (e.g. last 20 years; line 108 does not allow to understand if this is the outcome or a guiding criterion of the search). Then, line 103: I think this is the last (rather than the first) screening… before that, you should be able to say how many records went to the title-abstract screening.
Line 113: secondly to what? This part is not clear: why 40 cities in 16 countries: is it an outcome of the additional search? What are the criteria for this search? Why this search has different criteria from the previous one? The retrieved documents are not provided
Line 121: the selection of Europe as the area of analysis should be motivated before the methods section and explained as a search criterion
Link with SDGs: please clearly state to what literature you aim at linking SDGs (first search or second search or both)
The coding framework is missing. This is a key element of the methods section; please provide a scientific rationale behind the selection of the coding framework (e.g. deductive, inductive) and the way how you are using it to analyse the retrieved literature.
The results section is very long; this is because there is a lot of irrelevant material, especially explanations that should be addressed in the methods section.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for the valuable comments and suggestions, which were all considered and included in the new version of the manuscript.
We attach a file including the answers to each specific questions.
Many thanks again,
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Congratulations.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your suggestion.
As recommended, the paper as well as the supporting information have been proofread.
Best regards,
The authors
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
I think the article can be published
