Financial Resources for the Investments in Renewable Self-Consumption in a Circular Economy Framework

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting paper. I believe that the topic is timely and relevant and that there is potential to add to the literature. The argumentation of the manuscript is well written and presents a clearly argued case for examining the effects of financial resources and their renewable consumption. However, despite these strengths, I also had a number of significant concerns which would need to be addressed. I discuss these major concerns below:

 

Weak research motivation in the introduction.

The introduction section is not written; clearly, it would have been great if the author can follow the sequence as the Revised introduction should have the following flow: Brief overview -> Importance of topic/domain -> Research Problem -> Research Gap--> aims/objectives -> overview of remaining sections. In particular, this study should deal with the contribution to the research problem a little more in the introduction. The research gaps and theoretical contributions are not strong enough. The paper did not present a strong explanation in terms of the research gap and research questions. Besides, the reason for building such a framework is not strong enough. The authors did not explain well why the combination of those two theories (and not others). Moreover, they did not mention many effects that previous studies on similar topics have already tested.

 

A considerable amount of space was devoted to reviewing the existing literature, but the hypothesis suggested by the authors lacks a connection with the reviews. For example, in H(RQ)1, the authors want to emphasize finding financing source types. If so, the relationship between the two was very natural in the existing research, but the possibility of why the relationship could be lost should be presented logically. H(RQ)2&3, similarly, loses the validity of the hypothesis because the logic of the existing literature on which the authors have been based is quite weak. Therefore, the authors should reconsider the research question and a way to reinforce the logic for establishing the relationship between hypotheses.

 

In hypothesis development, the relationship between many sentences is poor to understand.

 

In the methodology, it seems more desirable to put the time to estimate and examine your RQ with rigorous estimations. However, your results show lots of descriptive statistics, and there is no evidence that your RQs are solved. Although it is hard to prove your hypotheses with the given dataset, you can change your statistic view from descriptive to logistic or OLS regression. Rather, I hope the author attempt to figure out a small but meaningful hypothesis test. For example, t-test, x2-test, ANOVA, and logistic regression can be applied.

 

The paper needs proofreading.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

 

This is a very interesting and engaging paper which seeks to make a good contribution in the area of renewable self-consumption and its interface with a circular economic framework. I provide below some comments which I hope will help you to provide a more robust a) literature review b) methodology and c) findings section.

 

1. Literature review:

 

I would recommend that you add some more clarity on which areas of study your paper seeks to make a contribution. Obviously, this is an interdisciplinary study which seeks to address some aspects around sustainability but how do you really perceive sustainability considering your variables? Accordingly, I would invite you to consider whether and to what extend self-consumption relates to sustainable consumption. If so, so more engagement with literatures around sustainable consumption is required in the first part of the essay. As you mention the ‘choice’ of self-consuption provides to consumers with the agency to take more responsibility regarding the actions towards energy and the environment in general. There are many studies which explore the interface between sustainable consumption, zero emission and renewable energy and I would recommend that you cite some of them, or provide a closer reading, so as to show the gaps in the literature and the contribution of your paper. Also please provide some more depth to your reviews of literatures and facts. What was the outcome of the Green Deal process in the United Kingdom? Was it successful? What about the rooftop energy solutions in Hong Kong? Was it successful? Such review can help you to highlight how and why there is lack of evidence around the financial incentives that your paper seeks to address.  

 

Finally, at the end of the literature review so more discussion should take place on what you define as ‘financial resources’. In different parts of the world and (developed/developing) countries the meaning of ‘financial resources’ can take a different connotation – compared to EU for example.

 

1. Methodology: I would propose to elaborate a bit more on the case of Spain. Obviously, you might state that you had access to the sample. However, to what extend photovoltaic solutions in Spain might differ compared to Norway (due to sunlight seasonality for example)? Also please state what you mean as ‘professional’s and ‘small scale energy companies’. You provide sufficient demographic information in the following sections but more info on the selection of the wider sample is required and if you focused in a specific Spanish territory (urban/rural).

 

1. The issue of the literature review, returns in your findings. You have provided a good qualitative analysis but again, in which areas of study/disciplines does this paper make a contribution? How do these findings advance our knowledge and understanding based on previous gaps? Do you contribute to the collaborative business model operations area(s)? Please engage more with existing literatures to show your own contribution. Finally can we replicate these findings in other areas of Spain, Southern Europe or EU?

 

 

Overall, this is an interesting paper and I hope you will find my comments useful

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

 

The study is very interesting. However, there are several weaknesses you should address:

1. 1. In Table 1 the authors should also present the methods and the findings of those studies cited there, the country/countries and the analyzed period. Literature review should be more detailed.
   2. The Questionnaire should be added into Appendix
   3. The results should be correlated with the previous findings of other studies
   4. The policy recommendation part should be extended.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I carefully re-read the revised manuscript provided by the authors. Unfortunately, the revised manuscript confirmed that the method I gave was not properly revised. The introduction is still insufficient to support RQ, and the methodology is closer to fact-checking than verification. The authors only attached the questionnaire they prepared and did not make any attempt to validate new findings or modify existing RQs.

Author Response

The authors are grateful for the effort made by the reviewer and for the valuable contributions, which have been useful for improving the manuscript. The new version includes a response to the suggestions of reviewer#1 and the inroced changes are highlighted in yellow.

In response to your concern and considering the relevance you give to the method, Tables 5 and 8 have been added, and it includes a statistical analysis as required by the reviewer.

In addition, we appreciate your comments about the research questions. In the revised version of this paper, we enhance the specificity of the RQs, and we added sub-questions o validate new findings related to Table 5 and to Table 8 .

We agree with the reviewer about the advantages of conducting statistical analysis, and we welcome the suggestion. Still, we want to remark that our research dataset aimed to produce qualitative results, allowing us a very limited statistical analysis.

Thank you again for your valuable contribution.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, 

Thank you very much for the detailed response to my comments. I recommend publication and I wish you all the best with this project. 

Author Response

Thank you very much

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Although there is still a large gap between statistical testing and theoretical examination, I have decided that this manuscript is worth reading. It is still unfortunate that theoretical contributions are difficult to find.

Author Response

The authors are grateful for the effort made by the reviewer and for the valuable contributions, which have helped improve the manuscript. The new version includes a response to the suggestion of reviewer#1, and the introduced changes are highlighted in yellow.

In response to your concern related to the theoretical contribution of this study, we have introduced new paragraphs, and the revised version of this paper develops the connection between this theory and our research.

Please, take into account that the approach used in this study is not specifically theory-driven. Instead, its main contributions are those related to the definition and measurement of financial resources.

In the previous version of the manuscript (dated on the 28^th of May), the trade credit theory was mentioned (row 133) but not developed. Thus, we have added the following references

• Petersen, M. A., & Rahuram, G. R. (1996). TRADE CREDIT: THEORIES EVIDENCE. Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w5602/w5602.pdf
• Emery, G. W. (1987). An Optimal Financial Response to Variable Demand. The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 22(2), 209–225.
• Huang, L., Ying, Q., Yang, S., & Hassan, H. (2019). Trade credit financing and sustainable growth of firms: Empirical evidence from China. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/su11041032

In the updated version of the paper, we enhance the description of the trade credit theoretical framework and its view of trade credit as a type of financing available by the seller to the buyer analysed in our study for self-consumption.

We developed a connection between the theory mentioned above and the research questions. Therefore, some paragraphs have been added to link the theoretical perspective and the results. In addition, a specific paragraph has been developed in the conclusions section highlighting the academic contribution.

The development of contributions and theoretical analysis has been synthesised as far as possible not to lengthen the manuscript any longer.

We have re-revised the writing of the article. In any case, whenever the editor or the reviewer considers English editing necessary, we are willing to count on the specialised English editing service of MDPI.

Thank you again for your valuable contribution.