Implementation of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the Procurement Process of Buildings: A Systematic Literature Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments
In this paper, the authors provided a systematic literature review for the obstacles to the implementation of life cycle assessment in the procurement process of buildings. The authors claim that especially in the procurement process, the LCA method is seldom utilized. The obstacles are divided into five categories and conclusions in the abstract are nicely presented. Overall, the paper is written very nicely. However, the reviewer doubts the contribution from this paper. Since many articles have been published in this domain. Following please find some comments prior to possible publication.
1. Numerous review articles have been published during the last decade in this domain. Hence, please state the novelty of this paper in answer to the comments? Do we have existing studies on exactly similar topic? What’s the specific contribution relevant to existing similar studies? Please provide some references related to similar existing studies and then the authors could state the contribution clearly in the manuscript.
2. The material and methods section is quite small as compared to the results, discussions, and conclusion. The conclusion section appears to be large. Please make the conclusion section more precise if possible.
3. There has been significant amount of work done in this area. Hence, currently, the reviewer did not find any significant contribution. Please expand on this aspect. Although the authors claim that the procurement aspect of buildings for LCA is not investigated much but I presume there are studies available in this area. Please elaborate if that’s not the case?
4. Figures should be enriched and reference style should be rechecked again. The figures are seldom utilized and the ones utilized are not up to the mark.
5. Overall, the paper is nicely written but should be checked for grammatical errors. Also, the references should be checked as well, especially where reports are referenced.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
a big thanks for your time and remarks that you made for the manuscript. These remarks have increased significantly the fluidity of the text and make it more comprehensible and easier for the readers. We hope that you will find this version clearer and suitable for publication in the Special Issue Life Cycle Thinking and Sustainability Assessment of Buildings of Sustainability Journal.
Attached you will find the revision to the remarks. The original remarks of the reviewer are written in plain text and our comments are written in red.
In the manuscript, the revisions are marked up using the “Track Changes” function.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors define the research topic as follows: the greatest leverage for reducing CO2 emissions from buildings is concentrated at the early design stage, therefore, during the bidding process, an early life cycle assessment (LCA) could be an important factor in reducing the CO2 emissions from the construction industry and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
Next, the authors summarize the results of a systematic literature review (SLR) on the application of LCA in the procurement process of public buildings and identify 5 types of barriers to the implementation of the new method.
We think that the article meets the requirements of the journal and can be published in it. On the other hand, the article has flaws that need to be fixed before publication.
ANNOTATION
It is not clear, in total, how many articles touch on the topic raised? (i.e. how life cycle assessment relates to carbon footprint reduction)
19?
As we understand, the authors have done a sociological study. However, the annotation should state the main stages of this study. What are they (eg sampling frame definition, etc.)?
It is also important to indicate in the abstract whether the study was guided by any ethical standards?
It should be indicated that the study is consistent with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.
INTRODUCTION
At the end of this section, the main stages of sociological research should be given. The fact is that the authors do not quite clearly imagine the structure of the study. They say: "In order to better understand the application of LCA in the bidding and award processes for public building projects, the purpose of this article is to present the state of the art in considering environmental aspects, in particular the LCA method, in public procurement."
We emphasize once again that the authors aim to "represent the state of the art in considering environmental aspects, in particular the LCA method, in public procurement."
Then on what basis do the authors raise, in our opinion, an unjustified question about the connection between the carbon footprint and the LCA method, since the study of this aspect is beyond the scope of the goal, as defined by the authors.
As a result, either it is necessary to consider the current state of the specified problem, or to clearly formulate the purpose and objectives of one's research.
The authors continue: "Therefore, a systematic literature review (SLR) is being conducted. The study included a preselection and evaluation of current and qualified literature studies to answer two specific research questions:"
In order to conduct a systematic review of the literature, authors need to bring readers up to date on the problem, i.e. provide a logical analysis of the basic concepts and put forward reliable hypotheses. The study does not have either.
We want to understand, but we cannot, why the authors suddenly put forward 2 questions in the following wording:
"(i) What methodological approaches are used to investigate LCA in the building procurement process?
(ii) What are the barriers to implementing LCA in the building procurement process?"
On what basis did these questions arise, what is the logic of preliminary reasoning? The second question is of particular concern. The reader is left wondering why there are obstacles if the authors are convinced that LCA will be applied at an early stage of building design?
In the Introduction, the authors hint at some difficulties, but at the same time, they talk about new and mandatory requirements for the LCA.
If, as the authors say, the LCA is a mandatory rule in the procurement process for environmental impact assessment and sustainable decision making, then like everything mandatory, it will limit the completeness of green projects and possibly lead to negative results.
To illustrate the absurdity of the last declaration about the obligatory nature of the LCA in the procurement process, let's clarify our point with the following example.
Consider the ISO 14001:2016 standard.
The main goal of the ISO 14001 standard is not to point out the need for mandatory measures as the main factor in ensuring environmental safety, but to form a responsible attitude towards the environment and natural resources as the most important asset of people's economic activity.
It is unsatisfactory that the authors unreasonably consider their draft LCA (which has not even been formulated conceptually yet) as a universal norm for assessing environmental impact.
By the way, the ISO 14001 standard states that only intermediate values are effective, in order to achieve which employers must plan and develop the achieved indicators for the improving the state of natural and technical systems.
It would like to ask the authors how different enterprises in terms of energy efficiency and environmental safety will use mandatory LCA method to improve the state of the environment?
Finally, we also consider it necessary to define the object and subject of research.
The analysis thus showed that the Introduction section needs additional structuring and updating of the defined problem on the merits of the case.
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this section, it is necessary to clarify the rationale and choice of methods for collecting empirical data, as well as the definition of the sampling frame. It is clear that the "snowball" method serves as a tool for the formation of the author's target sample. However, it is not clear why the authors used this method? For rare and hard-to-reach groups? If so, then they should explain what they consider rare and why? Actually, it is necessary to present the main features of the snowball method before using it. This improvement will help to understand a lot of interesting information in extensive 6 tables. Without this, the illustrativeness of the tables remains unclaimed.
Although the authors presented characteristics of the methods used to collect information and the logical structure of the tools for collecting informatполевоеion, however, this is, so to speak, nothing more than a field survey. Why did the authors limit themselves to a final sample of 19 articles for metadata analysis? It is clear from the text that they shortened the lists in one case and expanded in another. But all these are casual and unconvincing excuses in favor of a "reasonable" number of articles, a subjective desire to reduce their number to 19. Of course, 19 articles are easier to research than 569 articles. Everything else looks like subjective arbitrariness, rather than scientific argumentation. In this section, it is required to indicate the logical schemes for processing information (for example, by keywords that are given by the authors in the article).
Due to the weakness of the methodological section of the study, the results of the article are inconsistent. The authors chose to go through a continuous study, so their results and conclusions are not sufficiently substantiated.
When drawing up a sample population, each element of the population must have the same chance of being included in the sample; the sample must meet the requirement of representativeness. Most often, the target sample is subjective, which reduces its representativeness. From this, we can conclude that the author's sample of 19 articles is not reliable.
The authors are confused in questions of methodology. In the Results section, they again raise the issue of methodological approaches in 19 selected scientific articles, which is obviously wrong.
Because of the analysis of the final sample, 6 research designs were identified. This statement is of no interest from the point of view of the results. Table 1 does not help to understand what the authors are researching, what are the results of their own research? Figures 1 and 2 only add to the confusion about the research topic. The authors' conclusion that 12 out of 19 papers attempted to apply LCA in the building procurement process looks like a deus ex machina.
Further, the authors among of obstacles again find methodological issues, which only confirms the weak methodology of the article.
The authors distinguish 5 types of obstacles, but their caliber is different and, in a certain sense, incomparable. Methodological obstacles are one thing, political obstacles are another. It is clear that the issues of standardization without state support and regulation are doomed to failure. However, the authors do not understand that from the point of view of state normative control, any methodological obstacle is political and is subject to normalization and regulation. The same is true of organizational, economic and other obstacles. The methodology of the article does not allow combining obstacles of different weight into one complex and evaluating them in one row. It is better for the authors to confine themselves to methodological and organizational difficulties.
4. DISCUSSION
In this section, the authors state: "The results of the SLR show that the implementation of LCA in the construction industry's procurement process is largely ignored in the academic literature." This statement is far-fetched, since the adoption of "green" solutions and the requirements of sustainable development have long been part of the daily practice of "green" building and "green" standards (for example, LEED, LBC).
Indeed, the authors below, surprisingly, agree with this. As for the LCA method, there are international standards ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 that define the principles for calculating LCA [55,56]. In addition, there is even a standard for using LCA to calculate the environmental performance of buildings [24]. The application of these standards and therefore the application of LCA in the construction industry is already far reaching [57-59] and therefore cannot be an obstacle to implementation.
The following discussion is full of conflicting conclusions. It is not clear what the authors studied: obstacles? or practice? the current state of the issue? or is it their purpose to give advice on the implementation of their method?
We agree with the authors that the evaluation of the environmental performance of buildings during bidding and awarding contracts is uncharted territory and is still almost not used in practice. Should the authors focus on calculating the cost-effectiveness of buildings, i.e. the life cycle cost (LCC) in the building procurement process? [65,66]
Further text in the Discussion section is loosely related to the Results. It is better to shorten it and move it to the Introduction section or partially to the Methods.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The conclusions are very weakly correlated with the rest of the work. Many conclusions are banal when it comes to "green" construction. For example, the authors conclude: "The application of environmental criteria can be integrated into tenders for building services and construction contracts. Another approach is to implement the criteria in a pre-architectural competition."
The content of the Findings should be moved to the Results section. It is necessary to shorten the conclusions and write only about what was done in the process of the study itself.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
a big thanks for your time and remarks that you made for the manuscript. These remarks have increased significantly the fluidity of the text and make it more comprehensible and easier for the readers. We hope that you will find this version clearer and suitable for publication in the Special Issue Life Cycle Thinking and Sustainability Assessment of Buildings of Sustainability Journal.
Attached you will find the revision to the remarks. The original remarks of the reviewer are written in plain text and our comments are written in red.
In the manuscript, the revisions are marked up using the “Track Changes” function.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript addresses the application of LCA in the procurement process of public buildings and identifies the obstacles to implementation. The authors reviewed the literature in this regard. The manuscript can be accepted as long as the following points are addressed.
1-In the abstract, the authors divided the obstacles of using LCA in construction into five categories; however, they did not provide proposed ideas to expand the literature oof each.
2- The authors should discuss and propose research directions based on the outcomes of the review.
3- It is better to give a solution framework for the problem of implementation obstacles.
4-In page 9, justify the table as previous.
5-Page 15, last line (line 338): put a period (.) after the end of sentence. Likewise, lie 358, in the following page.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
a big thanks for your time and remarks that you made for the manuscript. These remarks have increased significantly the fluidity of the text and make it more comprehensible and easier for the readers. We hope that you will find this version clearer and suitable for publication in the Special Issue Life Cycle Thinking and Sustainability Assessment of Buildings of Sustainability Journal.
Attached you will find the revision to the remarks. The original remarks of the reviewer are written in plain text and our comments are written in red.
In the manuscript, the revisions are marked up using the “Track Changes” function.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
We think that the article meets the requirements of the journal and can be published in it.
