Study on Certification Criteria of Building Energy and Environmental Performance in the Context of Achieving Climate Neutrality
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Good work. Well structured original work.
Author Response
RESPONSE TO REVIEWER #1
Dear Reviewer,
As the authors of the original paper entitled “Study on certification criteria of building energy and environmental performance in the context of achieving the climate-neutrality”, submitted to Sustainability, we would like to thank you for the feedback on our research. The Authors have addressed the reviewer’s comments as presented and replied below.
COMMENTS
- English language and style are fine/minor spell check required
- Good work. Well structured original work.
REPLIES:
- Proofreading has been done to raise the manuscript’s English proficiency.
- The reviewers’ comments motivated us to rebuild our manuscript a little bit. We hope you are satisfied with the updated version.
Authors
Seyda Adiguzel Istil
Jarosław Górecki
Arnaud Diemer
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have discussed a very important topic.
But the concept of the paper is not understandable.
How select Credit Categories and credit points?
Table 4 is very difficult to follow. What is the need for this?
There is a possibility to improve the quality in all sections of the paper.
Structure of the paper also need to modify.
Author Response
RESPONSE TO REVIEWER #2
Dear Reviewer,
As the authors of the original paper entitled “Study on certification criteria of building energy and environmental performance in the context of achieving the climate-neutrality”, submitted to Sustainability, we would like to thank you for the feedback on our research. The Authors have addressed the reviewer’s comments as presented and replied below.
COMMENTS
- English very difficult to understand/incomprehensible
- The authors have discussed a very important topic. But the concept of the paper is not understandable.
- How select Credit Categories and credit points?
- Table 4 is very difficult to follow. What is the need for this?
- There is a possibility to improve the quality in all sections of the paper.
- Structure of the paper also need to modify.
REPLIES:
- Proofreading has been done to raise the manuscript’s English proficiency.
- The study was reorganized, and changes were made to improve the concept of the paper. The concept of the paper has been presented in the “Introduction Part” between lines 131-151. Also, it is presented below:
“In Paris Agreement, it has been decided that the developed countries should support the developing countries with financial sources to combat greenhouse gas emissions [5]. Because Türkiye has been defined as a developing country in the Paris Agreement, it has aimed to investigate, in this study, the relationship between the earned points of the IEQ categories that can be accepted as a performance to reduce GHG emissions. As a result, the research aims to verify the combination of the agree-ment’s requirements and the countries’ economic development level.
According to the literature review, a knowledge gap was found that the de-velopment level (economic) and IEQ were not compared before. Previous studies in-clude searching for a relationship between climate change and economic development levels only. However, no study shows the relationship between the LEED certifica-tions’ IEQ credit and GDP values. The purpose and the importance of the study are to present that the projects applied to the LEED certification are not determined by fi-nancial limitations, even if the economic development level of the country in which they are located is comparably lower. The investors want to show customers that their companies pay attention to the building occupants’ comfort and well-being by achieving the highest IEQ points.
On the other hand, the reason for selecting version 4 (v4) is the Paris Agreement, which was accepted in 2015. For this reason, the projects certified before 2015 were not accepted to be reviewed for IEQ criteria because most countries have started to apply new requirements and developed new policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other related applications after 2015.”
- In lines between 97-104 the reason for selecting the LEED BD+C v4 New Construction&Major Renovation category has been added and explained:
“In this study, the LEED Building Design&Construction version 4 certified projects have been investigated around Europe and Türkiye by considering the New Con-struction&Major Renovation category. The reason is to investigate the construction projects at the beginning of the design phase. For this reason, the certification type, which is “New Construction&Major Renovation”, has been examined to search for the projects from the design phase. In addition, the selected category contains residential homes and office buildings, residential buildings, schools, and commercial buildings (Table 1). Thus, it has been accessed to different types of certified construction projects”
Also, the reason for selecting IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality) has been added between lines 112-122:
“Despite a rise in the number of green buildings, carbon dioxide emissions have also increased. Especially the building occupants, who have been negatively affected by GHGs, have paid more attention to their environmental conditions, comfort and well-being. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the building occupant’s desire for indoor environmental quality has become a requirement to be healthy. Thus, the importance of the IEQ has automatically increased. The quality of the indoor air, the contaminant rates in the exhaled air, well-being and comfort of the building occupants have become more critical due to spending much more time in the buildings for the last three years. Through the pandemic, it is commonly established that the GBs have even less negative impact on the indoor environment quality. At the same time, it is well known that GHG emissions negatively affect indoor environmental quality.”
- Instead of Table 4, a new visual expression, Figure 1, has been implemented to make the study clearer for readers.
- The reviewers’ comments motivated us to rebuild our manuscript. We hope you are satisfied with the updated version.
- The concept and the structure have been revised. We hope you are satisfied with the updated version.
Authors
Seyda Adiguzel Istil
Jarosław Górecki
Arnaud Diemer
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Hi, This is a good paper and topic. However, there are number of siginificant works and similart articles are available in the current litreature. My main suggestion is how you can provide a clear and robust constribution when a reader comparing your article against others.
Thanks,
Author Response
RESPONSE TO REVIEWER #3
Dear Reviewer,
As the authors of the original paper entitled “Study on certification criteria of building energy and environmental performance in the context of achieving the climate-neutrality”, submitted to Sustainability, we would like to thank you for the feedback on our research. The Authors have addressed the reviewer’s comments as presented and replied below.
COMMENTS
- Extensive editing of English language and style required
- “Hi, this is a good paper and topic. However, there are number of significant works and similar articles are available in the current literature. My main suggestion is how you can provide a clear and robust contribution when a reader comparing your article against others.”
REPLIES:
- Proofreading has been done to raise the manuscript’s English proficiency.
- The reviewers’ comments motivated us to rebuild our manuscript. In lines 138-146, we have mentioned that according to the literature review, a knowledge gap was found that the development level (economic) and IEQ were not compared before. Previous studies include searching for a relationship between climate change and economic development levels only. However, no study shows the relationship between the LEED certifications’ IEQ credit and GDP values. The purpose and the importance of the study are to present that the projects applied to the LEED certification are not determined by financial limitations, even if the economic development level of the country in which they are located is comparably lower. The innestors want to show customers that their companies pay attention to the building occupants’ comfort and well-being by achieving the highest IEQ points.
Authors
Seyda Adiguzel Istil
Jarosław Górecki
Arnaud Diemer
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Authors have made good efforts to compare different green building rating systems. the manuscript can be accepted subjected to following modifications.
Write all the number as . not ,
Table 9 is confusing considering . ,
what is ,356 ,123 and . means in GDP in table 9
Fig 5 has no citation
what are the factors which might hamper the GDP of the country in connection with IEQ. Will it affect the authors conclusions.
Author Response
RESPONSE TO REVIEWER #4
Dear Reviewer,
As the authors of the original paper entitled “Study on certification criteria of building energy and environmental performance in the context of achieving the climate-neutrality”, submitted to Sustainability, we would like to thank you for the feedback on our research. The Authors have addressed the reviewer’s comments as presented and replied below.
COMMENTS
- English language and style are fine/minor spell check required.
- Write all the number as . not ,
- Table 9 is confusing considering . ,
- what is ,356 ,123 and . means in GDP in table 9
- Fig 5 has no citation
- what are the factors which might hamper the GDP of the country in connection with IEQ. Will it affect the authors conclusions.
REPLIES:
- Proofreading has been done to raise the manuscript’s English proficiency.
- Instead of each “,” for numbers, it has been replaced with dots.
- Table 9 has been revised by using “.” and instead of writing “,356” it has been rewritten as “0.356”
- An explanation of the numbers and GDP has been added to the study between 391-394. The explanation has been presented as below:
“In Table 9, the Spearman correlation analysis results from the sig. (2-tailed) value have been found as 0.123, which is greater than 0.05, meaning there is no correlation between the achieved IEQ points and the constant GDP values.”
- Figure 5 has been developed by the authors.
- According to your valuable comments, the “Research Limitations and Future Research Lines” section has been added to mention what can be searched in the future related to this study.
Authors
Seyda Adiguzel Istil
Jarosław Górecki
Arnaud Diemer
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper can be accepted in its present form.
Author Response
RESPONSE TO REVIEWER #2
Dear Reviewer,
As the authors of the original paper entitled “Study on certification criteria of building energy and environmental performance in the context of achieving the climate-neutrality”, submitted to Sustainability, we would like to thank you once again for the feedback on our research.
We appreciate your commitment to improving the level of science.
Authors
Seyda Adiguzel Istil
Jarosław Górecki
Arnaud Diemer
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
It was improved.
Author Response
RESPONSE TO REVIEWER #3
Dear Reviewer,
As the authors of the original paper entitled “Study on certification criteria of building energy and environmental performance in the context of achieving the climate-neutrality”, submitted to Sustainability, we would like to thank you once again for the feedback on our research.
We appreciate your commitment to improving the level of science.
Authors
Seyda Adiguzel Istil
Jarosław Górecki
Arnaud Diemer
