Reviewing the Role of Outdoor Lighting in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper studies the influence of the outdoor lighting in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals.
In general, the paper is interesting, even though some clarifications should be added in the paper.
All the following indicated aspects should be clarified and better explained in the manuscript.
Literature review
- The main contributions of the paper are clearly described. Nevertheless, from the current manuscript it is not grasp understanding the novelty of the work. The authors should better highlight the innovative aspects of their work in the manuscript.
Methodology
- The description of the proposed methodology could be improved. First, it could be better to insert at the end of Section 2 (or adding anew section between current Section 1 and 2) an outline about the methodology scheme/architecture; here, a high-level diagram/scheme could also help reader following the whole description. In other words, why Section 2, 3, and 4 address respectively SDG 3+11, 7+11, and 14+15?
General
- Do the current technical and non-technical regulations / policies correctly address the potential of outdoor lighting in satisfying the SDGs? For instance, as for the engineering perspective, several scientific studies shows that the design of lighting systems (for instance: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2017.08.2292, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2019.05.070, documents that could be cited in the paper) often involves simultaneously competing criteria such the energy efficiency, the environmental sustainability, the light pollution, and the citizens comfort. The Authors should comment this point a challenging recommendation for future outdoor lighting systems, aimed at being beneficial to SDGs. The Authors should comment this point.
Energy efficient lighting
- The discussion focuses on the designing new outdoor lighting systems using energy-efficient luminaires or lighting control systems (dimming). However, the literature review should be also extended on lighting systems retrofit. The authors should add some references (for instance: https://doi.org/10.1109/TASE.2020.2966738, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2017.08.137, documents that could be cited in the paper) to better highlight the research actual motivation / concrete need of studying the influence of outdoor in park luminaires on the light pollution and energy efficiency.
Conclusions
- Can the authors provide guidelines that allow energy/facility managers/engineers to make outdoor lighting more beneficial to SDGs?
- Conclusions needs to be extended to present further implications for future research and many managerial insights based on the results of the study, as well as limitations.
Minor
- The authors should check that all the used acronyms are explained
- Mainly the English is good and there are only a few typos. However the paper should be carefully rechecked.
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper deals with a review of outdoor lighting benefits and issues with reference to the targets of SDGs. It is an interesting work, well organized and clear. Thus, I suggest only minor revisions that may be useful to improve the manuscript clarity and scientific content. In particular:
1) I think also SDG 11 may deal with outdoor lighting (e.g. target 13.2), because the choice of high efficiency luminaries may contribute to reduce climate change problems. what do the authors think about it? If yes, the text and figure 1 should be updated (and perhaps some additional bibliographic references cited and commented)
2) Section 2.1: in terms of psychological effects, the discussion about the effect of different lights might be improved, by making specific reference also to parameters such as colour temperature and colour rendering index. Furthermore, they are relevant not only about light pollution (as partially described in section 4.4) but also for determining visual comfort, safety (e.g. red lights), peculiar sensations (e.g. colour of shop sign lights).
3) Line 153: missing reference, nature [?]
4) Lines 689 and 709: “REFERENCIA”, probably it is a missing reference.
5) The effect of different kinds of light sources (e.g. HPS, LED, …) and luminaries (e.g. spotlights, flood lights, street lights) on human-centric lighting aspects might be furtherly discussed.
6) A Table with the association between the used references, the corresponding SDGs (targets) and the topics of Figure 1 might be useful, to be introduced as Appendix or Supplementary material (not mandatory).
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Previous comments and concerns have been sufficiently addressed. In the revised paper several improvements have been added.
