Can Renewable Energy and Export Help in Reducing Ecological Footprint of India? Empirical Evidence from Augmented ARDL Co-Integration and Dynamic ARDL Simulations
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This study can contribute to the existing literature. But a few minor fixes are needed.
1) Ecological footprint is mentioned in line 49. An ecological deficit chart for India should be added here.
2) The study is incomplete in terms of SDG discussions. The following studies may guide the authors.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21133-w
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2022.05.002
https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2383
3) The motivation of the study is not specified in the introduction. Authors should write clearly how this study will contribute to the existing literature.
4) In the introduction, the authors state that they used 47 observations (in line 100). However, it is seen in Table 2 that they used 48 observations.
5) The advantages of the AARDL model are not specified.
6) The T_dv statistics in Table 4 are incorrect. In the Pesaran et al. (2001) study, critical values are negative. In these conditions, cointegration is not valid.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer’s Comments
Comment 1: “Ecological footprint is mentioned in line 49. An ecological deficit chart for India should be added here”
Response: Dear reviewer, an ecological deficit chart for India has been added.
Comment 2: “The study is incomplete in terms of SDG discussions. The following studies may guide the authors.”
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21133-w
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2022.05.002
https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2383
Response: Respected reviewer, thank you for this constructive feedback. We have added this discussion in the introduction section.
Comment 3: “The motivation of the study is not specified in the introduction. Authors should write clearly how this study will contribute to the existing literature.”
Response: Many thanks respected reviewer for providing us the opportunity to improve the manuscript by clarifying the contribution of this article in the existing body of literature.
Comment 4: “In the introduction, the authors state that they used 47 observations (in line 100). However, it is seen in Table 2 that they used 48 observations.”
Response: Dear reviewer, we have rectified it.
Comment 5: “The advantages of the AARDL model are not specified.”
Response: Many thanks to the respected reviewer. We have now added the advantages of AARDL model in the methodology section of 3.2.
Comment 6: “The T_dv statistics in Table 4 are incorrect. In the Pesaran et al. (2001) study, critical values are negative. In these conditions, cointegration is not valid.”
Response: Thank you respected reviewer for this constructive feedback. We have now added structural break in the model and re-estimate the A-ARDL cointegration model. We have now obtained T_dv as negative and statistically significant. We are grateful to you.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript ID sustainability-2011291
Title: Can renewable energy and export help in reducing the ecological footprint of India? Empirical evidence from Augmented ARDL Co-integration and Dynamic ARDL Simulations
This study investigates the impact of exports, renewable energy, and industrialization on the ecological footprint (EF) of India, which ranks third in the world in terms of its aggregate bio-capacity deficit. The topic is aligned with the journal's scope and needs minor revisions to improve its quality.
I appreciate the opportunity to review the proposed article and hope that my considerations will help to improve the work. My detailed comments are as follows:
Abstract: The abstract section should clearly mention the objective, methods, and concise results in sequence. Revise accordingly
Introduction: In the introduction section, research objectives are missing. Clarify the background, objectives, research gaps, and innovations in this section.
Literature review: Add more advance and relevant literature in section 2.3, Industrialization and environmental quality and section 2.4, Economic Development
Data Definition and Empirical Approach
This study uses the newly developed augmented ARDL (A-ARDL) co-integration & unit root test approach. Although methods are advanced and appropriate; however, add the relevance and importance of these methods to justify the application in this study.
Results and Discussions: Discuss results in detail and mention the innovative outcome. Further results should be backed with appropriate literature. Results should be further elaborated in detail.
Conclusion and Policy Recommendations: Add limitations and future research ideas in the conclusion section
Avoid grammatical and typo errors, and revise the manuscripts for these two concerns
Author Response
Response to Reviewer’s Comments
Comment 1: “Abstract: The abstract section should clearly mention the objective, methods, and concise results in sequence. Revise accordingly”
Response: Thank you, dear reviewer. We have revised the abstract accordingly.
Comment 2: “Introduction: In the introduction section, research objectives are missing. Clarify the background, objectives, research gaps, and innovations in this section.”
Response: Thank you respected reviewer for this constructive feedback that provides us the opportunity to add the missing research gaps, contribution and innovations of this study.
Comment 3: “Literature review: Add more advance and relevant literature in section 2.3, Industrialization and environmental quality and section 2.4, Economic Development”
Response: Many thanks to respected reviewer. We have now expanded those sections based on your valuable comments.
Comment 4: “This study uses the newly developed augmented ARDL (A-ARDL) co-integration & unit root test approach. Although methods are advanced and appropriate; however, add the relevance and importance of these methods to justify the application in this study.”
Response: Dear reviewer, we have added the importance of adopting A-ARDL method in the methodology section.
Comment 5: “Results and Discussions: Discuss results in detail and mention the innovative outcome. Further results should be backed with appropriate literature. Results should be further elaborated in detail.”
Response: Dear reviewer, we have revised the results and discussion section as per your kind suggestions.
Comment 6: “Conclusion and Policy Recommendations: Add limitations and future research ideas in the conclusion section”.
Response: Authors are grateful to the respected reviewer for the constructive comments. We have now added the limitations and future research direction at the end of the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This is an interesting paper about renewable energy. The topic of the manuscript is appropriate for the sustainability journal. The authors should be addressed some minor revisions as follows:
1. The optimal data of the article should be added in the last paragraph of the Abstract.
2. The Conclusion is too long. Please revise this section.
3. Please check the manuscript to avoid any English grammar mistakes and typos.
After addressing the above comments, the manuscript could be accepted.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer’s Comments
Comment 1: “The optimal data of the article should be added in the last paragraph of the Abstract.”
Response: Thank you reviewer. We have added the optimal data of the article in the last paragraph of the abstract.
Comment 2: “The Conclusion is too long. Please revise this section.”
Response: Many thanks to the respected reviewer for the constructive comment. We have now improved concise this portion. We also divided the “Conclusion and Policy Recommendations” section into two separate sub sections as “conclusion” and “policy recommendations” to better portrait the main conclusion and policy of this paper.
Comment 3: “Please check the manuscript to avoid any English grammar mistakes and typos.”
Response: We are grateful to the respected reviewer for giving us an opportunity to revise the manuscript. We have carefully rechecked the whole manuscript for any possible typos and grammatical errors.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
This study is very interesting and export is very important to several most populated countries such as China and India. Please provide more explanations on your contribution and improvement to this topic. Your study confirms previous study results but doesn’t present enough contribution to this topic. Revisions in the following areas are suggested below.
1. Section 2 Literature Review on Page 3 is too long. Please make it short and concise. Also please emphasize on your contribution to this topic.
2. Page 10: what is your work on DARDL? Did you make some improvement or just use it?
3. Figures on Page 14: what is the unit of time?
4. Page 19: The study shows India can reduce footprint and get growth through expansion of export sector. What about other factors such as cost, technical difficulties, politics that impact the export?
Author Response
Response to Reviewer’s Comments
Comment 1: “Section 2 Literature Review on Page 3 is too long. Please make it short and concise. Also please emphasize on your contribution to this topic.”
Response: Many thanks to the respected reviewer for giving us an opportunity to revise the manuscript and improve its quality. As per your valuable suggestions, we have now concise the Literature Review section through including only relevant literature and we emphasize the contribution of this study in the Introduction section of this manuscript.
Comment 2: “Page 10: what is your work on DARDL? Did you make some improvement or just use it?”
Response: Thank you so much. We employed the DARDL model to explore the short and long run coefficients of the explanatory variables due to its significant improvement over the traditional ARDL model (also discussed its benefits in the method section). We also used this model to construct graphs showing positive and negative counterfactual adjustments in independent variables and their influence on dependent variables. We regret that, as this is a recently discovered approach, we did not add any methodological improvements to it. Instead, we applied it empirically to the setting of the Indian environment.
Comment 3: “Figures on Page 14: what is the unit of time?”
Response: Thanks for your meticulous feedback. The unit of time is years. We have added as a note at the bottom of the figure.
Comment 4: “Page 19: The study shows India can reduce footprint and get growth through expansion of export sector. What about other factors such as cost, technical difficulties, politics that impact the export?”
Response: We are grateful to the respected reviewer for raising an important issue. As per your valuable feedback, now we have addressed this comment and revised this sentence.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
The revised manuscript has addressed the questions presented in the original manuscript. The results and conclusions are clear now in the revised manuscript.
