Analysis and Assessment of the Building Life Cycle. Indicators and Tools for the Early Design Stage

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The first half of the abstract is too general and more suitable to be moved to the introduction. Abstract needs to be more specific to the study. Major findings need to be included in the abstract.

Some parts of the article needs revision in terms of the language and English proofreading. E.g “If, on the one hand, there is a shift from 9.5 Gigatons of CO2 (Gt) in 2013 to 9.0 Gt in 2016 associated with consumption for thermal and electrical uses, on the other hand, there is an increase in emissions associated - in particular - with the building materials manufacturing.” How many on the other hand in one sentence? OR “It rose from 3.1 Gt in 2010 to 3.7 Gt in 2016.” This sentence is too short. OR “The emissions have global effects that affect everyone; the releases …” how many effects/affects in one sentence? AND so many other writing issues.

Every one knows about the global challenges related to carbon emissions. The introduction includes FOUR paragraphs explaining why addressing climate change and carbon emission reductionsa re necessary, which is too long. The general introduction needs to be reduced to three to four lines maximum.

Always include line numbers in the submitted manuscripts to make communications easier with reviewers.

It is confusing why your model is better than other people’s model and what makes it special. There is a lack of literature review and referencing in the introduction to build up the discussion why such model needs to be developed. There should be some sort of comparison with other models in the market.

The paper needs to be restructured. There is section 1 and section 3, but section 2 is missing. AND also readers need to know what to expect in the following sections. A few sentences in the introduction could clarify the structure of the paper. So it is not clear whether the Section 1 (Indicators for the construction sector based on a building life-cycle approach…) is your model or others. You need to clarify this to readers. Even if you there are some parts that you talk about other models, and some parts your model, this needs to be clearly stated.

The image in Figure 3 is blur, and it is also not clear why you need to include a screenshot of the model in your paper.

After reading the whole article, it seemed that the objective of the paper hasn’t been stated clearly and the paper only used EURECA to do a LCA analysis for a case study building, which questions the originality and the scientific contribution to the literature.

What are the weaknesses and limitations of EURECA? How authors know that EURECA provided a appropriate LCA for the case study building.

No conclusions are included in the manuscript.

Author Response

Distinguished reviewer, according to the revisions:

1) The abstract was revised in order to better explain the paper content and the matched objectives.
2) The introduction was partially reduced and in the meantime, an improvement concerning the paper description was also added.
3) A literature review concerning the LCA tools was carried out, to discuss their scientific progress and to describe how the developed tool (EURECA) can be ranked and what its purposes are. 
4) A better description of the developed tool features was provided.   
5) New pictures were added to improve the clearness (even if the definition follows the editor guidelines).
6) New paragraph "discussion" was included to explain better the correlation between EURECA and the LCA study carried out on the case study.
7) The conclusion was implemented.

Finally, an English text revision was done.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Originality/Novelty: The introduction, the analysis of the state of the art and the bibliography must be expanded: in the literature there are many studies on LCA, on tools developed to implement it and on simplified methodologies. In its current form, the article does not sufficiently clarify what the novelty of the model developed by the authors consists of.

Significance and Scientific Soundness: The article illustrates the EURECA calculation model and its application to a test case, the PEI Maquina Verde's House, designed and built for the International Solar Decathlon Latin America and Caribbean competition. The assumptions made and the results obtained are clear. However, it is not clear whether the article simply illustrates the application of the model or even its development. In fact, in the text the authors refer to their previous articles already published concerning the EURECA model.

Quality of Presentation: The presentation must be better treated: two figures (figure 3 and figure 4) are of poor quality and are not legible, sometimes in the text Kg is used instead of kg.

Interest to the Readers: The topic is interesting and also the application to the test case is of interest to many people. In addition, the argument is consistent with the purpose of the newspaper, which in fact has already published numerous other contributions on the LCA.

Overall Merit: The development of methodologies for Life Cycle Assessment and the calculation of indicators to assess the sustainability and environmental impact of buildings is an important topic and also the application to real test cases is useful for improving knowledge on the subject. However, the article in its current form appears weak: the state of the art must be better investigated and the role and original contribution of the work better explained.

English Level: English needs to be improved.

Author Response

Distinguished reviewer, according to the revisions:

• The paper was implemented with a larger literature review concerning the indicators investigated and the LCA tools, to discuss their scientific progress and to describe how the developed tool (EURECA) can be ranked and what its purposes are. 
• A better description of the developed tool features was provided.
• The paragraphs were implemented to better explain the role and the originality of the paper
• New pictures were added to improve the clearness (even if the definition follows the editor guidelines).
• A new paragraph "discussion" was included to explain better the correlation between EURECA and the LCA study carried out on the case study.

Finally, an English text revision was done.

Reviewer 3 Report

The topics dealt with the proposed work is very interesting, unfortunately, from the point of view of scientific writing there are serious shortcomings. For this reason the article must be resubmitted after these problems have been solved. The judgment is not related to the quality of the work. Unfortunately, the basic elements to prove how the proposed work is scientific, innovative and useful in the literature of the sector are missing.

Even if the research proposed shows a great potential, the presentation must be completely revised to make it acceptable as a scientific work.

There are specific and general issues, 

The specific issues are:

1) In the Abstract, the Authors declare: “The paper deals with research aimed at setting out a calculation model for accounting indicators related to the most important building life cycle stages.” It is not clear what are the most important building life cycle stages, according to what? Anyhow, in scientific works, it is preferable to avoid these statements. Or alternatively, the sources from which the observation is deduced should be immediately explained.

2) In the introduction, no reference is provided to the objectives of the paper. It is not clear what contribution the work gives to the scientific community. Sentences like “Within these actions and initiatives, the Technology and Environment Research Group of the Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Torino, for more than 10 years has been engaged…” are not useful for the purpose of a scientific work and to explain the goal and importance of the proposed work.

3) “More in detail, the contribution aims to illustrate the results of a research project that has led to the creation of an open-source calculation model” this is the goal of the paper? It is not clear.

4) Which is the purpose of the research? What you are proposing? The open-source calculation model EURECA? or a case study about the life cycle assessment of PEI Maquina Verde’s House?

The general the issues of the work are: 

• Originality/Novelty is not well defined, it is not clear how the results provide an advance in current knowledge. Which important long-standing question do the authors addressed with this work?
• The Significance of results are not appropriately interpreted. Results of the application of the EURECA calculation are only presented without discussion. Conclusions are not justified and supported by the results. 
• Data and analyses are correctly presented but it is not clear the purpose of all the work.
• Purpose and conclusion (related to the goal) of the proposed research are missing.
• Authors should specify why the proposed work is interesting for the Readers.  

I strongly suggest resubmitting the work but after solving these points. 

Author Response

Distinguished reviewer, according to the revisions:

• The abstract was corrected specifying the stages included in the assessment as well as describing better the paper purposes.
• The main paper objectives were better described in the introduction.
• Not useful sentences were deleted.
• The paper was implemented with a larger literature review concerning the indicators investigated and the LCA tools.
• An improved description of the developed tool (EURECA) was added (how it can be ranked and what its specific goals are). 
• The paragraphs were implemented to better explain the role and the originality of the paper.
• A new paragraph "discussion" was included to explain better the correlation between EURECA and the LCA study carried out on the building.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript provides a satisfactory level of scholarship to be considered for the publication in Sustainability Journal.

Author Response

Distinguished reviewer, a final version of the paper is available. 
Some minor revisions have been carried out to improving the quality paper. In addition, a final English check has been done.

Thanks for your attention, best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article appears significantly improved. The authors have responded to the requests and the article can be published.

English still needs to be improved.

Two further comments are as follows:

Row 177: EPDs this acronym is not explained

Row 245: Does “Xls spreadsheet” mean “Excel Speadsheet”?

 

Author Response

Distinguished reviewer, a final version of the paper is available. 
Some minor revisions, included the ones you requested, have been carried out. In addition, a final English check has been done.

Thanks for your attention, best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

In the new version of the manuscript, the goal, originality/novelty and significance of results have been better explained.

The quality of the article has improved. 

The article aims to contribute to the international debate on environmental assessment indicators for buildings and simplified LCA based tools. EURECA tool application shows that a simplified building LCA can be achieved accounting EE and EC, consistent with the EN 15978:2011 standard.

The only important point remaining to be clarified is the validation of the approach. Since the proposed tool is able to achieve a simplified LCA, it is necessary to demonstrate and emphasize the quality of the obtained result (one possibility is through a comparison with a more in-depth LCA).

I suggest creating a new subsection in the discussion to emphasize the quality and validation of the results obtained. 

 

Author Response

Distinguished reviewer, a final version of the paper is available.

The revisions requested have been carried out to improving the quality paper. In particular, some sentences concerning the validation of the approach are now included through a comparison between direct data (gathered from participating enterprises at the Solar Decathlon Competition) and indirect data (referred to LCA database available).

In addition, a final English check has been done.

Thanks for your attention, best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Suggestions were accepted and developed by integrating and modifying the previous work. Additions and amendments are generally relevant and satisfactory.