Planning Reclamation, Diagnosis and Reuse in Norwegian Timber Construction with Circular Economy Investment and Operating Costs for Information

Reviewer 1

The main drawback of the paper is that it is not clearly written. It contains a lot of information that is not properly structured. 

Thank you for this comment. As you noticed, we used quite some time  to revise the text. We reflected a lot upon the comments of all the four reviewers (which were also contesting each other), what the ‘simple message’, the novelty and contribution to knowledge is, and reworked the text extensively. We added insights from the bigger research project. This led to a totally new structure, removal of old texts and new texts.

The terms and contexts are not explained so that a wider audience can understand them. 

You are right. Thank you for the comment. We added insights from the bigger research project, including the terms and context of this research project. 

The role of different stakeholders in the learning and innovation process is not clearly explained. 

We added more concepts to explain how we perceive the collaboration in the value chain and how this interacts with concepts like the emerging circular built environment and the circular city and regions concepts.

It is also mentioned that some respondents noted that there are also stakeholders and roles that are no longer needed and are hindering the transition to a circular economy. However, this was not explained further.

Thank you for pointing this out. We worked this out, engaging with the aforementioned concepts. It is indeed an important observation in these developments.  

I believe the authors put a lot of effort into the research, but the results were not adequately conveyed in the paper, making the reuse survey model and the multi-level governance model difficult to understand. Thus, although it deals with an important subject, it cannot contribute to scholarship in its present form.

Thank you. We asked the editor for more time, so we could work out what we wanted to tell. We reframed and worked out some ideas that reflect better the message that we want to disseminate with this paper.

Specific comments:

line 57 - "pre-demolition audit and" should be deleted (pre-demolition audit is mentioned twice in the same sentence);
line 64 - seems as though the sentence "Other terms for the same process and tools are." is not finished;
line 320 - "demolished companies" does not seem to fit in the sentence. 

Thank you for these specific comments. We paid also a language editor and formatting editor (via MDPI) to do a final reading. 

Reviewer 2

The study is focused on establishing a framework to progress the circularity transition in Norway to reuse and reclaim building materials using an interview protocol. The paper presents a very important subject area, and the literature review provides a holistic overview of the subject matter. The paper is well-written, and has great merits. However, the following notes need to be addressed:

Thank you for this comment. As you noticed, we used quite some time (for MDPI) to revise the text. We reflected a lot upon the comments of all the four reviewers (which were also contesting each other), what the ‘simple message’, the novelty and contribution to knowledge is, and reworked the text extensively. We added insights from the bigger research project. 

Abstract:

-The first few sentences of the abstract are unclear and out of context. Please add a short context to clarify the subject matter to the readers. 

We rewrote the abstract in an extensive way. 

- Define CE implementation before putting the abbreviation

We defined circular economy abbreviation and also included some extra sentences about what we mean with circular economy implementation.

Introduction:

- Some sentences are long, which could disrupt the coherence of the writing, please break them into multiple sentences;

We rewrote the introduction in an extensive way and took this comment into account. We hope that this introduction reads more fluently. We also paid for a language editor which improved our flow. 

- In sentence, Line 64: "Other terms for the same process are" is incomplete. 

Thank you for reading our paper carefully. We removed this.

- Table 1: It has been mentioned that seven interviewees were considered however, the table shows just 6 interviewees including L, O, V, B, S, and T.

We corrected the table. As a conclusion on reflecting on the comments of other reviewers, we added insights from another series of interviews in the same bigger CircWOOD project, and reworked the table. 

-Line 135: Considering [35], three rounds of coding is reference to another paper, so the codes were already available? If yes, what were the novelty beyond the codes generated by the second author?

Thank you for pointing this out. We reworked this section. We added more context about the bigger project and the sub-projects and multiple methods. We hope this explains enough the novelty and difference with this Master thesis dissertation. 

- Line 164: All the studies considered for technical processes have to be cited (e.g. [4,12]) is not acceptable.

- Please put a complete flow chart including how the questionnaire is created and the processes used for coding

Reviewer 3

The manuscript concerns the actual and important problem of the reuse of building materials in the Norwegian timber construction sector. The authors formulated the objective of the study as: “this study wants to investigate which processes and stakeholders contribute to this reuse survey and propose a framework of a system of processes and discuss if information facilitation should be planned by an actor like the local government or be business-driven” [lines 99-102].

Thank you for this comment. As you noticed, we used quite some time to revise the text. We reflected a lot upon the comments of all the four reviewers (which were also contesting each other), what the ‘simple message’, the novelty and contribution to knowledge is, and reworked the text extensively. We added insights from the bigger research project.

The text of the manuscript seems to be mostly written in Norwegian and machine-translated into English. For this reason, many parts of the text are difficult for proper understanding. The text requires extensive editing of the English language and style.

Your observation is right; the text is not written by native speakers. However, your assumption is not that entirely right. A main part of the text is written by the second author (now first author), who is not Norwegian and did not use machine translation. She can read Norwegian, but would not write in Norwegian and then use machine translation. The only machine translation is applied to the Norwegian transcripts. We added some sentences about translations in the methodology section. However, we are not a native English speakers and we agreed that we tend to write too long English constructions. We agreed with you that the text needed more editing. We used the language services of MDPI after we revised the text.  

The topic of the manuscript was formulated in too general way and partially does not correspond to the content: “Awkward learning and innovation processes in a Norwegian circularity transition: Planning reclamation and reuse of building materials”. Authors declare that in spring 2022 they conducted a survey in seven “organizations in southern Norway (mostly located in and between Trondheim, Bergen, Oslo)” [lines 121-122] representing the Norwegian timber construction sector. The questionnaire consists of 24 open questions divided into 4 categories.

Taking into consideration the scope of the research, the topic of the manuscript rather should be: “Actual problems with reuse of building materials in the opinion of chosen organizations from the Norwegian timber construction sector” or similar.

Thank you for this comment. We changed the title of the revised version which echoes better the simple message, key takeaways and the contribution to society that we want to community with this study and paper. 

In Conclusions, the authors declare that they elaborated and proposed in the manuscript “a fair risk-cost-added value distribution model for reuse surveys (and other data collection methods for a circular built environment transition” [lines 513-514]. There is no confirmation of this declaration in the text of the manuscript. 

In point “4.6. A multi-level governance model with a set of processes” we can find Figure 1. “Set of learning and innovation processes in planning reuse in the construction sector” and its short description. The figure contains a simple set of words describing four types of basic processes (technical, reflection, enabling, project management and agreement processes) without references to circularity, transition, and distribution.

Thank you. You are right. We reworked this figure (now Figure 3), the conclusion and the manuscript in a radical way. We removed some previous statements and cleaned up. This study/manuscript is part of a bigger project, which is still going on. We tried to add more context, and this helped us also to understand the agenda, objectives and questions behind this manuscript more. Thank you for your critical remarks. They helped us to reflect a lot about this manuscript in the past 2 months.  

Reviewer 4

Thank you for the opportunity to evaluate the submitted study.

 An interesting article, touching on the current directions of development of many organizations and governments. The implementation of innovative activities is a driving force for national economies and a factor for the development and competitiveness of enterprises. More and more initiatives are being implemented in the so-called closed loop, resulting from the limitation of (natural) raw material, climate change, etc. 

Thank you for sharing your view of our paper. 

The presented study, from the point of view of science, only confirms the existing state (trend). It has little contribution to science, as it does not present empirical data that would confirm the necessity of applying this trend, and would also analyze the factors determining it.

Thank you for this comment. As you noticed, we used quite some time  to revise the text. We reflected a lot upon the comments of all the four reviewers (which were also contesting each other), what the ‘simple message’, the novelty and contribution to knowledge is, and reworked the text extensively. We added insights from the bigger research project.

Suggestions for completion:

- If the authors can supplement the study with (valuable) data, it would increase the rank and evaluation of the conducted research;

Thank you for this suggestion. We tapped into the pool of our sub-projects within the bigger CircWOOD project that funded this (and other sub-research projects). In the method we talk now about a multiple method approach and added more information about the new data in this paper. 

- The authors indicate the importance of cost sharing, etc., but they do not indicate what is the % of investment, or what values are we talking about? - it is worth considering supplementing this point;

Thank you for this comment. We added more insights and texts about the values we are talking with. We have some preliminary insights to absolute and relative numbers (access to cost benefit calculations of companies), but we cannot share them. In the meantime, our roles in the bigger project changed. The first author has to als deal with NDAs. So, we have to be careful with how many insights we share or not (yet) in a (possible) public manuscript.   

- Similarly, the risk aspect should be considered. We do not know whether if the state supports such activities, will the risk decrease or not? and to what extent?

We reframed the paper in a way that answering who would carry risks etc. is not in the scope anymore of this paper. We added some more notes about the circular city and region concept and initiatives, which are emerging in Norway, but it is all in a premature phase. 

It is a pity that the study population was so small. We do not know what the potential of these organizations is, which means that each of them may perceive (evaluate/perceive) certain values differently.

Thank you for pointing this out. We added more information about the bigger project which validated that this small size was already big enough. During this revision period, we noticed that other Norwegian researchers also shared results (and we recognise the companies they interviews) that also validate that our sample size was big enough. 

The work lacks indications of quantitative data (how many entities answered yes and how many otherwise?) that need to be supplemented, in particular that the authors indicate that e.g.:

- "Many interviewees talked about which date...." - how many?

- "Data availability was a highly recurring topic; interviewees state the lack of data, because it was not created, ...." - how many?

- "Additionally, we noticed that most interviewees in Norway had less experience, except a few...." - how many?

Thank you for this comment. This suggestion let us reflect a lot about our methods and the way we analyse our qualitative data, present our results and discuss it. We added some numbers where we felt comfortable, but we are cautious with giving numbers of how many interviewees answered what exactly. This was not a survey with a high sample size, so numbers (absolute or relative) might be misinterpreted. In this revision, we also made it more clear that we are drawing from other methods (observations, desktop based research, action research), so quantitative data of the interviewees might also be misleading. We made it more clear that this is an explorative phase of a bigger research informed design and development project. 

Summing up, I consider the article worth publishing after considering my comments and suggestions, because it raises the socially important subject of the so-called circular investment. I believe that the presented subject matter is an introduction to broader and deeper research in the future.

I congratulate the authors on the research idea and wish them perseverance and success in the future.