Integration of Digital Twin and Circular Economy in the Construction Industry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I had the pleasure of reviewing the manuscript: “Integration of Digital Twin and Circular Economy in the Construction Industry” submitted to Sustainability (Manuscript ID: sustainability-2545030). Although I have read the entire manuscript with interest, I have critical concerns about the methodology and discussion sections of the manuscript which need to be improved. I hope the authors will find my comments useful in the development of their work.

 

1/ The research methodology lacks several pieces of information: when were the subsequent stages of the research carried out, e.g. When were the interviews conducted?; When was the survey carried out?; How was the sample size determined? There is also a lack of detailed information about the experts themselves... This must be supplemented. Additionally, in the appendix to the manuscript, I would like to see sample questions from the scenario and the questionnaire.

2/ I would like to know what is the theoretical contribution of this manuscript, i.e., why and in what aspects this study is important for the development of theory (it is not entirely clear to which scientific discipline you contribute and how). I would suggest signaling such a contribution already in the introduction and expanding it in the discussion section. The manuscript also has practical implications but only some of them have been indicated, and only very briefly.

3/ Unfortunately, the limitations of the study that were included in the conclusions section need to be rethought and extended with additional examples in this regard.

4/ The directions for future research should be described in more detail.

 

5/ The manuscript lacks social implications. Public policy implications should be indicated in a similar way.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is quite an interesting and seedy article. There is a bit too little discussion related to treasury management and articles on the financial implications of introducing and continuing the circular economy. And without this key parameter, the whole thing will operate less sustainably.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

sustainability-2545030-review

Integration of Digital Twin and Circular Economy in the Construction Industry

This study adopts a combination of expert interviewing as a qualitative research method and questionnaire surveying as a quantitative research method based on a review of the relevant literature. The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the implementation of circular economy and the integration of digital twin and circular economy in construction. This is an interesting topic. However, as a scientific paper, I think the current manuscript has a lot of issues that need to be addressed and is still a long way from being published.

1. The research methods of the manuscript are unclear. Based on the literature review and qualitative interviews,......????? I can obtained any valuable information.

2. Literature review, qualitative interviews and questionnaire survey, are three important research tools for your manuscript. It should be clear to the authors what the findings of the literature review are, and it is recommended that they be presented in a visual diagram. The specific form and content of qualitative interviews and questionnaires, the principles of targeting, etc. need to be clarified.

3. Do you have any successful cases to share?

4. The results analysis is too textual, perhaps the visualization of the charts is more appealing to the reader.

5. What exactly is the innovative nature of the research results? Is it the relationship between digital twins and the circular economy?

6. Regarding the discussion and conclusion section, it's more like implications of the study and doesn't reflect the innovation of the study.

7. Personal opinion only, no offense intended.

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

This study empirically investigated the implementation of circular economy and the integration of digital twin and circular economy in construction. This study also adopted a combination of expert interviewing as a qualitative research method and questionnaire surveying as a quantitative research method. It is interesting and helpful for the research of digital twin and circular economy in the construction industry.

 

However, there are some issues or questions could be addressed:

1) In the abstract, the meaning and the important findings of this study should be explained clearly. What are the novel contributions in this paper?

2) In the Section of Introduction, the existing studies such as the digital twin or circular economy in construction were not described in detail. Additionally, the problems of previous studies are not explained. What are the key tecnology or problems proposed in this study? 

3) The main contributions of this study, or conclusive theory, technique or methods of this study should be clearly described.

4) In Section 2 of Circular Economy and Digital Twin, the authors described these two important components, such as circular economy and digital twin. In this section, the key issues related these circula economy and digital twin and their integration methods should be described in detail. The present contents of common concept explanation could be described briefly.

5) In Section 3 of Research Methods, the authors should summarize and analyze the different involved algorithms in detail. Just listing these common used survey methods are not better for a research manuscript.

6) In Section 4 of Analysis Results, what are the important and novel analysis results of this study? The results were common sense for everyone in some extent. The results were also some tables, which lacks of visualization graphic results. 

7) In Section 5 of Discussion, the authors should first propose their own ideas about circular economy and digital twin, not just listed other studies. Moreover, it should explore the deeper meaning of this study.

8) The Conclusion is too simple. The crucial meaning and possible deficiencies, such as the method selection, needed to be further explored.

9) The type of this manuscript should be a review, not a article, according to my opinion.

10) Some related references should be included and reviewed in this study, such as:(1) Wang, et al, 2022, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14020265; (2) Wang, et al, 2019, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11131540; et al.

Minor editing of English language is needed.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

thank you for the opportunity to review the revised version of the manuscript “Integration of Digital Twin and Circular Economy in the Construction Industry” submitted to Sustainability. In the current version, the manuscript is more consistent and complete. First of all, I appreciate the changes in the methods section by providing clear information about the interviewees. The theoretical input, practical implications, limitations, and future research directions were also corrected, improving the entire manuscript's quality. 

Detailed modifications that have been introduced in the current version of the manuscript are as follows:

1/ Clear information about the interviewees was provided.

 

2/ Theoretical contribution, managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions have been corrected and enriched as suggested.

 

In digression. I disagree with the authors' explanation of the public and social implications. Every manuscript should present such implications; otherwise, why publish at all? Art for art? Besides, the implications are not a scope of the study because, of course, the topic of the manuscript was different, but every manuscript should, in some sense, serve society, and it is worth emphasizing something like that. The more so that the circular economy takes place in society, and without social involvement in this aspect, no progress can be achieved.

Reviewer 3 Report

 Accept in present form

Moderate editing of English language required

Reviewer 4 Report

The author has addressed the issues and suggestions related to my last review. I hava no other questions.