Relationships between Environmental Initiatives and Impact Reductions for Construction Companies
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is clear and well structured: introduction, literature review, methodology, conclusions. The objectives are interesting and current.
After reading the paper, I suggest the following notes and observations:
In my opinion, the criteria and the way in which the case studies (the eight international construction companies) were selected are not sufficiently clear;
It would be useful to better specify how the environmental impacts assumed by the research were analyzed and measured. This is a very important aspect.
I would like to point out that it is difficult to investigate sustainability criteria without considering economic aspects. This can be a limitation of the research. Sustainability must always be considered in its different manifestations: environmental, social and economic. It would be useful to better highlight this aspect and give a methodological explanation.
In the conclusions it would be important to try to give a more scientific and critical interpretation to the results obtained, also in view of future research.
Author Response
The article is clear and well structured: introduction, literature review, methodology, conclusions. The objectives are interesting and current.
- After reading the paper, I suggest the following notes and observations:
In my opinion, the criteria and the way in which the case studies (the eight international construction companies) were selected are not sufficiently clear;
Reply:
The following three criteria are added in the Research Method on page 5:
“The selection criteria were: (1) they represented a general overview of sustainability reporting in the construction sector, (2) they were from different countries or continents, and (3) they published CSR reports for the five years under study.” Some words were adjusted accordingly in the remaining paragraph.
- It would be useful to better specify how the environmental impacts assumed by the research were analyzed and measured. This is a very important aspect.
Reply:
The environmental impacts were not assumed or measured by the research. Instead, they are the values of the four chosen quantitative indicators taken directly from CSR reports. They are analyzed in Section 4 and the increase or decrease of values in Tables 3 and 4 are compared.
It is modified on page 6 to make it clearer.
“…these indicators were disclosed with values that are easy to identify and compare. Adopting the indicators overcomes the uncertainty in the identification and assessment of environmental impacts. Therefore, their values were chosen to indicate the impacts described in this study.”
- I would like to point out that it is difficult to investigate sustainability criteria without considering economic aspects. This can be a limitation of the research. Sustainability must always be considered in its different manifestations: environmental, social and economic. It would be useful to better highlight this aspect and give a methodological explanation.
Reply:
Sustainability is a very broad area. Sometimes environmental, economic and social aspects can be analyzed at one time. Many times they are analyzed separately such as in this study. One paragraph is added on page 2 to explain the scope issue:
“Sustainability includes environmental, economic and social perspectives, but this study focused on environmental perspective only. Economic or cost aspect of environmental initiatives can be analyzed to determine their effectiveness as suggested in Discussions and for future research. Social aspect such as concerns of interested parties can be studied when research issues are appropriate such as assessing the significance of environmental impacts.”
In the conclusions it would be important to try to give a more scientific and critical interpretation to the results obtained, also in view of future research.
Reply:
As written in Conclusions: “The results show that energy consumption had the largest number of relationships…; the likelihood for an initiative to reduce energy consumption was approximately 40%... Furthermore, the likelihood for an initiative to reduce environmental impacts was approximately 25% on average…”
The interpretation to them are written afterwards: “This indicates that initiatives may work for some companies but not work for others…, meaning that roughly one of four companies was able to undertake initiatives to reduce their impact. This result is acceptable because the relationship between initiatives and impact has not been studied in great depth and practitioners have only partial knowledge of it.” These interpretations are appropriate.
One paragraph is rewritten in Conclusions as follows:
“Environmental initiatives or practices are implemented by companies and written in CSR reports in practice. Studies identified the relationships between environmental initiatives and environmental performance. But the influence of initiatives on impact reduction was not investigated. This study reveals that environmental initiatives increased environmental performance with likelihoods. This result supplements and supports the prior studies that only some initiatives are valid and some companies implement them successfully. A company should check the effectiveness of their environmental initiatives before implementation.”
The future research is derived from the studied results. It is written in the last paragraph:
“Future research can analyze the extent to which an impact is reduced and the duration of that impact as well as the cost involved in implementing environmental initiatives…”
Reviewer 2 Report
The article refers to the relationship between economic initiatives and CSR activities of construction companies and the actual impact of such activities. Despite the fact that CSR is a concept known for a long time and the fact that there are well-known standards such as SA8000 or AA1000, many construction companies still have problems with the application and measurement of CSR-related coefficients and their impact.
Although CSR is not obligatory in most countries, more and more construction industry companies decide to use it. The article deals with an interesting topic important from the point of view of sustainability, environmental protection, and human race well-being.
The aim of this paper was to investigate the relationship between environmental initiatives and their implementation using CSR reports of construction companies. Studying these relationships authors identified the extent to which environmental initiatives help reduce environmental impact.
The authors provided a good literature study. They referred to recognized publications and drew interesting conclusions from them.
The paper adopts the method of content analysis to analyze the relationship between environmental initiatives and indicators disclosed in CSR reports. A total of forty CSR reports were analyzed, covering the annual CSR reports of eight companies for five (consecutive) years. The reports were studied in the period of 2010-2014. This leaves the reader with a certain level of dissatisfaction. The data could be more up-to-date. However, the authors explain their choice in a convincing way.
The results presented by the authors show that energy consumption had the largest number of relationships between initiatives and impact reductions. The likelihood for an initiative to reduce energy consumption was calculated at approximately 40%. The likelihood for an initiative to reduce water consumption for approx. 9.4%. The obtained results are not groundbreaking, although it is very good that the researchers calculated them relatively accurately on the basis of the research.
The estimated likelihood for an initiative to reduce environmental impacts (25%) is an alarming figure. I hope that the presented results will help motivate construction companies to take appropriate actions.
The language of the article is correct. The article reads well, it is interesting. The structure is good. Conclusions are consistent with the evidence and arguments presented in the article.
Author Response
The article refers to the relationship between economic initiatives and CSR activities of construction companies and the actual impact of such activities. Despite the fact that CSR is a concept known for a long time and the fact that there are well-known standards such as SA8000 or AA1000, many construction companies still have problems with the application and measurement of CSR-related coefficients and their impact.
Although CSR is not obligatory in most countries, more and more construction industry companies decide to use it. The article deals with an interesting topic important from the point of view of sustainability, environmental protection, and human race well-being.
The aim of this paper was to investigate the relationship between environmental initiatives and their implementation using CSR reports of construction companies. Studying these relationships authors identified the extent to which environmental initiatives help reduce environmental impact.
The authors provided a good literature study. They referred to recognized publications and drew interesting conclusions from them.
The paper adopts the method of content analysis to analyze the relationship between environmental initiatives and indicators disclosed in CSR reports. A total of forty CSR reports were analyzed, covering the annual CSR reports of eight companies for five (consecutive) years. The reports were studied in the period of 2010-2014. This leaves the reader with a certain level of dissatisfaction. The data could be more up-to-date. However, the authors explain their choice in a convincing way.
The results presented by the authors show that energy consumption had the largest number of relationships between initiatives and impact reductions. The likelihood for an initiative to reduce energy consumption was calculated at approximately 40%. The likelihood for an initiative to reduce water consumption for approx. 9.4%. The obtained results are not groundbreaking, although it is very good that the researchers calculated them relatively accurately on the basis of the research.
The estimated likelihood for an initiative to reduce environmental impacts (25%) is an alarming figure. I hope that the presented results will help motivate construction companies to take appropriate actions.
The language of the article is correct. The article reads well, it is interesting. The structure is good. Conclusions are consistent with the evidence and arguments presented in the article.
Reply:
Thanks for the positive comments. The arguments and discussions of findings have been also improved in this revision through responding to the other reviewers’ comments.
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper tries to find possible relationship between environmental initiatives and impact reductions from corporate social responsibility reports of construction companies.
There is a lack of discussion on literature who work on exactly the same topic and there is not enough justification on gap identification and necessity of conducting this study in relation to the related literature exactly on this topic.
Authors in page 5 claim "Actually, more than 100 initiatives and 160 indicators in forty samples of CSR reports were evaluated" but then it is revealed that only four indicator and limited number of initiatives were actually analyzed!
I find the process for establishing a relationship ambiguous and not scientific. There could be multiple factors impacting each indicator year to year. However, the protocol adopted, and the discussions provided do not cover this important aspect sufficiently. The idea of the paper is valid, but the implementation and results are weak.
Author Response
The paper tries to find possible relationship between environmental initiatives and impact reductions from corporate social responsibility reports of construction companies.
- There is a lack of discussion on literature who work on exactly the same topic and there is not enough justification on gap identification and necessity of conducting this study in relation to the related literature exactly on this topic.
Reply:
Similar topics in the relationship identification are discussed in Literature Review Section 2.3 but exactly the same topic was not found. The gap identification is more justified by adding some papers that addressed this need as written on page 2:
“Moreover, it is unclear whether the initiatives undertaken by a company improve environmental performance. Studies identified the relationships between environmental initiatives and environmental performance [19,20]. But the influence of initiatives on impact reduction was not discussed. To address its importance, initiative implementation should be studied with corresponding environmental impacts [21]. To ensure the enforcement of initiatives, construction process needs to be monitored closely to know their effect [22]. Therefore, the relationships between initiatives and the reported impacts of these initiatives need to be verified.”
Figure 1 Research framework is shifted to the position following the above paragraph to make the research purpose clearer with relevant literature concept shown.
It is also stated in the first paragraph in Conclusions on page 13: “…This study reveals that environmental initiatives increased environmental performance with likelihoods. This result supplements and supports the prior studies that only some initiatives are valid and some companies implement them successfully...”
- Authors in page 5 claim "Actually, more than 100 initiatives and 160 indicators in forty samples of CSR reports were evaluated" but then it is revealed that only four indicator and limited number of initiatives were actually analyzed!
Reply:
It should be 160 indicator “values” evaluated. Only four indicators were evaluated in this study. There are 19 initiatives in Table 3 and seven initiatives in Table 4. Twenty six initiatives were evaluated for the two companies. In total, 26*4 is roughly more than 100 initiatives evaluated for eight companies. This is explained in Discussions on page 12.
- I find the process for establishing a relationship ambiguous and not scientific. There could be multiple factors impacting each indicator year to year. However, the protocol adopted, and the discussions provided do not cover this important aspect sufficiently. The idea of the paper is valid, but the implementation and results are weak.
Reply:
To make it clearer in the beginning, the following sentence is added to explain the relationship establishment before Table 3 on page 6: “The rule used to establish a relationship is “an initiative is implemented in a year and its corresponding indicator’s value decreases in the next year.” Some minor explanations are also adjusted in its next paragraph.
A paragraph discussing this rule is added in Discussions:
“The rule used to establish a relationship is “an initiative is implemented in a year and its corresponding indicator’s value decreases in the next year.” This rule counted the numbers of relationships for many initiatives and indicators. Maybe some other rules can be used but this one was adopted because of its simplicity. Studies have shown that great uncertainty is involved in identification and assessment of environmental impacts [21]. This study’s research method adopts the four quantitative indicators and this rule to overcome the uncertainty of the identification and assessment of environmental impacts. There could be other factors influencing an indicator’s value year to year such as the amount of construction activity discussed above. But they can be studied jointly with the relationship establishment in future research.”
The relationship checking is a simple method adopted in this study. It is a valid method that many management studies use it to quantify and compare qualitative outcomes such as counting the points gained for green building certification. It works for this study’s purpose of counting the numbers of relationships.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments are addressed.
