Achieving Triple Benefits in a Platform-Based Closed-Loop Supply Chain: The Optimal Combination between Recycling Channel and Blockchain
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Title: Achieving triple benefits in a platform-based closed-loop supply chain: The optimal combination between recycling channel and blockchain
The topic of the paper is important from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The manuscript could be improved by considering the following points:
1. In the abstract you may state the novelty of the work. The abstract needs to be corrected with the required information. Less important lines can be removed. Make the abstract and proposal relevant.
2. Problem statement should be discussed in the first para of the Introduction part. Include the main objects of the work.
3. Related work must discuss the existing methods with their advantages and disadvantages. You can modulate the one para about existing limitations and proposed ideology
4. Architecture model (figure 1) is not clearly visualised and understandable. you could consider including model with good resolution. More explanation and discussion can be presented in this section.
5. Some equation terms must be ensured and defined before using the equation.
6. Dataset details should be discussed in the result section and what are the parameters used for experimental evaluation should discuss.
7. There are no advantages and a disadvantage discussed in the result section. There is no comparative analysis. Kindly include all the parts in the result analysis.
8. The quality of figures is less than normal, increasing the quality of figures.
9. Future scope of the article can be discussed with limitations in the conclusion part.
10. In some references, year is written at the end and in some references in between. Please follow uniform format.
11. This paper needs rigorous revision in terms of techniques, English and presentation.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
We are very grateful to your comments and suggestions for the manuscript entitled “Achieving triple benefits in a platform-based closed-loop supply chain：The optimal combination between recycling channel and blockchain” (sustainability-2171051). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully，summarized them and made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the manuscript. The main corrections of the paper and responses to reviewer comments are as follows:
Point 1: In the abstract you may state the novelty of the work. The abstract needs to be corrected with the required information. Less important lines can be removed. Make the abstract and proposal relevant.
Response 1: In order to state the novelty of this paper, we have simplified and modified the abstract in accordance with your suggestions, deleted redundant sentences, and added the innovation point of the paper. Details are as follows:
Line 9-17: In order to solve the false recycling problem that the real recycling volume is inconsistent with the theoretical one, Blockchain is widely used in practice due to the characteristics of transparency, traceability and tamper resistance, in order to study its value in academic, this paper focuses on a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a manufacturer and an online platform. This paper discusses the implementation conditions of blockchain, the impact on enterprise decision-making and manufacturer's recycling channel selection, the triple benefits of economy, environment and society in CLSC with blockchain empowerment is achieved. Because the non-transparency of supply chain, the problem of false recycling is always existed. To further solve the problem of false recycling, the recycler decides on whether to implement blockchain.
The novelty of this paper is that three major effects of blockchain implementation are defined as decision incentive effect, marketing leverage effect and incentive alignment effect. Details are as follows:
Line 19-24: At the same time, three major effects of blockchain implementation are defined as decision incentive effect, marketing leverage effect and incentive alignment effect which reveal the impact of blockchain on increasing the motivation of CLSC members to exert efforts, expanding market size by improving brand goodwill, and avoiding the inconsistency between the manufacturer and the platform in the preference of recycling channel.
Point 2: Problem statement should be discussed in the first para of the Introduction part. Include the main objects of the work.
Response 2: We added the problem statement and the main objects of the work in the first para of the Introduction part with your suggestions, the detailed description still follows the background of the Introduction part. Details are as follows:
Line 38-42: However, in practice, due to the non-transparency of recycling process and weak consumer awareness of recycling, it is difficult to carry out waste product recycling activities, and the real recycling volume of recyclers is inconsistent with the theoretical recycling volume of consumers, which results in the false recycling problems.
Line 122-133: To this end, this paper focuses on a CLSC system consisting of a manufacturer engaged in producing and remanufacturing and an online platform selling products as a marketplace. Considering that blockchain can regulate the whole recycling process of waste products, improve consumers’ trust and promote the recycling volume, this paper intends to answer the following three questions to fill the gap between blockchain adoption and recycling channel selection in the CLSC:
Q1: What are the optimal conditions for adopting blockchain in recycling process of waste products?
Q2: What impact will the adoption of blockchain technology in the recycling process have on corporate decisions, recycling rate, and manufacturer recycling channel selection?
Q3: How to optimize the combination of blockchain implementation and recycling channel se-lection to further enhance the economic, environmental and social triple benefits of the CLSC?
Point 3: Related work must discuss the existing methods with their advantages and disadvantages. You can modulate the one para about existing limitations and proposed ideology.
Response 3: To discuss the existing methods with their advantages and disadvantages, we emphasized current recycling levels and techniques. We referred to your suggestion and modified the details as follows.
Line 53-61: In the process of enterprise recycling activities, due to the inability to supervise the whole recycling process, using the existing methods, the actual recycling amount of waste products is far away from the theoretical recycling amount, and the problem of false recycling is gradually exposed, which has become a bottleneck problem restricting the development of circular economy. In the textile industry, more than 70% of the waste clothing recycling is illegally dumped into other second-hand clothing markets in Africa and China every year, and about 20% of the waste clothing has unclear final flow direction. The actual recycling amount is less than 10% of the theoretical one.
Line 66-69: Therefore, the consumer’s awareness is improved gradually. The existence of false recycling not only reduces the efficiency of recycling investment, but also leads to consumers distrust, which greatly damages the corporate image and further reduces consumers' desire to return waste products.
Point 4: â‘ Architecture model (figure 1) is not clearly visualised and understandable. you could consider including model with good resolution. More explanation and discussion can be presented in this section.
â‘¡Some equation terms must be ensured and defined before using the equation.
Response 4: With your suggestion, we modified figure 1 to view clearly and added the explanation and discussion of figure 1 and some equations.
Line 406-412: In CLSC without blockchain adoption, the theoretical volume of consumers is defined as , but the recyclers only receive the real volume . of the recycling is loss. It can be seen of Figure 1(a) and Figure 1(b). In CLSC with blockchain adoption, Thanks to the transparency and traceability of blockchain, the theoretical and real volume of recovery is consistent, that is . In addition, is defined as the sales volume in forward chain. The finance flow, recycle flow, product flow, service flow and technology flow are marked in detail. The other notations are defined in Table 2.
Line 418-422: We assume that brand goodwill is affected by both marketing activities and recycling activities and depends on the whole history, not only on the current level of marketing and recycling activities. In this case, a common assumption is that corresponds to the continuous weighted average of past marketing and recycling efforts, and the weight function decays exponentially.
Line 426-428: This process is captured by defining as a state variable, and its evolution is controlled by the following linear differential equation:
(1)
Line 431-435: we assume that the marketing efforts of the platform play an advertising role by increasing product exposure and consumers' awareness of products, which has a positive impact on brand goodwill [12,46,47]. is the coefficient of platform's marketing effort on brand goodwill. is the initial goodwill of the brand.
Line 462-463: is the retail price of every unit of product.
Point 5：①Dataset details should be discussed in the result section and what are the parameters used for experimental evaluation should discuss.
â‘¡There are no advantages and a disadvantage discussed in the result section. There is no comparative analysis. Kindly include all the parts in the result analysis.
â‘¢Future scope of the article can be discussed with limitations in the conclusion part.
Response 5：We have modified the details in Conclusion and Management Insights with your suggestion, Details are as follows:
Line 1017-1021: According to the numerical analysis, we got the optimal conditions for the implementation of blockchain. The parsing results show that the recycler is motivated to implement blockchain within a certain range of fixed cost. The cost thresholds under different recycling models are related to the platform commission rate and salvage sharing ratio.
Line 1028-1031: Decision incentive effect, i.e. the implementation of blockchain under different recycling channels incentivizes the platform to increase his online marketing efforts, while incentivizing the recycler to increase his/her recycling efforts.
Line 1055-1059: Furthermore, the manufacturer implementing blockchain for used product recycling can coordinate the platform in line with her recycling program. We define a cost range of blockchain implementation, i.e. ,where the manufacturer and the platform reach an agreement on manufacturer-recycling with blockchain as well as the triple benefits of the CLSC are realized optimally.
Line 1060-1066: What's more, research shows that the implementation of blockchain amplifies the potential market scale expansion capacity of the platform power, allowing the platform to act as an online marketplace to reach stable cooperation with the manufacturer and further promote the sustainable development of the CLSC. Compared with the recycling without blockchain, the implementation of blockchain can effectively regulate the contradiction between recyclers, improve consumers' awareness, and motivate consumers' recycling behavior.
Line 1075-1079: Of course, in order to study the impact of blockchain on the recycling of waste products, we only focused on the selection of recycling channels, and failed to study the differences in sales modes. At the same time, we adopted the dynamic game theory from a long-term perspective, there are limitations in parameter setting, which is a problem we will overcome in the future.
Point 6: The quality of figures is less than normal, increasing the quality of figures.
Response 6: With your suggestion, we modified several figures in the manuscript.
Figure 2. The choice of model and model .
Figure 3. The choice of models for corporate decisions and social performance of the manufacturer and the platform.
Point 7: In some references, year is written at the end and in some references in between. Please follow uniform format.
Response 7: We have made modifications according to the requirements of the expert, and the specific modifications are as follows.
Line 1362: Cui Y, Hu M, Liu J. Value and design of traceability-driven blockchains. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 2023.
Point 8. This paper needs rigorous revision in terms of techniques, English and presentation.
Response 8: With your suggestion, we modified several grammatical and typographical errors.
Line 9-12: In order to solve the false recycling problem that the real recycling volume is inconsistent with the theoretical one, Blockchain is widely used in practice due to the characteristics of transparency, traceability and tamper resistance, in order to study its value in academic, this paper focuses on a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a manufacturer and an online platform.
Line 173-176: First of all, the blockchain adoption to avoid false recycling fill the gap between blockchain implementation and backward supply chain management. What's more, it's worth stating that we introduced blockchain from the perspective of avoiding false recycling, which explores the application of blockchain only in the backward chain.
Line 565-568: Thus, it is illustrated that the manufacturer is always better off collecting the waste products without blockchain implementation. Compared to the platform-recycling channel, the manufacturer can get all the profits of the waste products under the manufacturer-recycling channel, so that the manufacturer will choose to recycle the waste products.
Line 710-712: The results show that the implementation of blockchain under different recycling channels can incentivize the platform to increase online marketing efforts, while incentivizing the recycler to increase recycling efforts.
Finally, we appreciate for Reviewer’s enthusiastic work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
1. Revise the title; the current title is not smooth as some words are capitalized, and some are written in lowercase. "Achieving Triple Benefits in a Platform-based Closed-loop Supply Chain: The Optimal Combination between Recycling Channel and Blockchain.
2. The entire abstract needs to be revised; the author didn't highlight the problem. Secondly, the author jumps to the contributions directly; I would suggest the author add a few sentences regarding the intro to the topic, the challenges and problems, and the contributions.
3. Usually, research is carried out to encounter future challenges; the first paragraph suggests data up to 2021; I recommend the authors check some new information that predicts data up to 2025-2030.
4. I would suggest the authors add a detailed motivation for the proposed work.
5. Provide more detailed information on the specific recycling channels and blockchain platforms that were studied in the research. This could help readers understand the context of the research and how it relates to real-world applications.
6. Include more quantitative data to support the conclusions and recommendations made in the paper. This could include statistics, financial analysis, or other forms of data demonstrating the proposed approach's triple benefits.
7. Expand the discussion on the implications of the research for practitioners and policymakers. This could include recommendations for how companies can implement the proposed approach in their supply chains and how governments can support the development of platform-based closed-loop supply chains.
8. Please provide examples and case studies of businesses or organisations successfully implementing the proposed approach. This would help illustrate the research's practical applications and make it more accessible to the readers.
9. Consider the limitations of the research and discuss the potential for further research in this area. This could include suggestions for future studies that build on the findings of this paper or explore other aspects of platform-based closed-loop supply chains.
10. The presentation is unsatisfactory.
11. Give the article a light language revision to eliminate a few long, complicated sentences that make it difficult to follow. Transitions between sentences are significant, and the author should ensure that the article is updated with the appropriate transition. Please proofread the manuscript, as there are several grammatical and typographical errors.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
We are very grateful to your comments and suggestions for the manuscript entitled “Achieving triple benefits in a platform-based closed-loop supply chain：The optimal combination between recycling channel and blockchain” (sustainability-2171051). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully，summarized them and made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the manuscript. The main corrections of the paper and responses to reviewer comments are as follows:
Point 1: Revise the title; the current title is not smooth as some words are capitalized, and some are written in lowercase. "Achieving Triple Benefits in a Platform-based Closed-loop Supply Chain: The Optimal Combination between Recycling Channel and Blockchain.”
Response 1: We have simplified the title in accordance with your suggestions. Details are as follows:
Line 2-4: Achieving Triple Benefits in a Platform-based Closed-loop Supply Chain: The Optimal Combination between Recycling Channel and Blockchain.
Point 2: The entire abstract needs to be revised; the author didn't highlight the problem. Secondly, the author jumps to the contributions directly; I would suggest the author add a few sentences regarding the intro to the topic, the challenges and problems, and the contributions.
Response 2: We have simplified and modified the abstract in accordance with your suggestions, we also connected the topic, the challenges and problems, and the contributions. Details are as follows:
Line 9-17: In order to solve the false recycling problem that the real recycling volume is inconsistent with the theoretical one, Blockchain is widely used in practice due to the characteristics of transparency, traceability and tamper resistance, in order to study its value in academic, this paper focuses on a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a manufacturer and an online platform. This paper discusses the implementation conditions of blockchain, the impact on enterprise decision-making and manufacturer's recycling channel selection, the triple benefits of economy, environment and society in CLSC with blockchain empowerment is achieved. Because the non-transparency of supply chain, the problem of false recycling is always existed. To further solve the problem of false recycling, the recycler decides on whether to implement blockchain.
Point 3: Usually, research is carried out to encounter future challenges; the first paragraph suggests data up to 2021; I recommend the authors check some new information that predicts data up to 2025-2030.
Response 3: With your suggestion, we modified the data, details are as follows:
Line 32-36: It is reported that between 2014 and 2019, the world produced a record 53.6 million tons of e-waste in 2019, the global amount of e-waste increased by 21%, it is expected to reach 74 million tons by 2030. In 2021, the global electronic waste and electrical equipment waste exceeded 57.4 million tons. The world's annual garbage output will reach 32 billion tons by 2050.
Point 4: â‘ I would suggest the authors add a detailed motivation for the proposed work.
â‘¡Provide more detailed information on the specific recycling channels and blockchain platforms that were studied in the research. This could help readers understand the context of the research and how it relates to real-world applications.
â‘¢Include more quantitative data to support the conclusions and recommendations made in the paper. This could include statistics, financial analysis, or other forms of data demonstrating the proposed approach's triple benefits.
Response 4: For the motivation for the proposed work, the manuscript has explained. Specifically, there are three reasons, firstly, the rapid development of online platforms has promoted the upgrading of products and shortened their life, and the number of waste products has continued to increase. Secondly, the existing recycling technology and concept is difficult to improve the recovery rate of waste products. Thirdly, there are enterprises using blockchain to recycle waste products at present, such as China's Hainan green technology and Thunder, but there are few theoretical studies.
Line 30-32: The rapid development of online platforms has further promoted the upgrading of products and shortened their life cycle, and the number of waste products has continued to increase.
Line 55-59: In the process of enterprise recycling activities, due to the inability to supervise the whole recycling process, using the existing methods, the actual recycling amount of waste products is far away from the theoretical recycling amount, and the problem of false recycling is gradually exposed, which has become a bottleneck problem restricting the development of circular economy.
Line 117-124: Not only that, considering the issue of false recycling, whether the implementation of blockchain will affect the original operation strategy of the platform and the choice of re-cycling channels of manufacturers is also a theoretical problem to be solved. Not only that, considering the issue of false recycling, if the blockchain is implemented, what impact will the original operation strategies of the platform, the choice of recycling channels of the manufacturer and the economic, environmental and social benefits of the closed-loop supply chain is also a very challenging and valuable issue, which needs to be further explored theoretically.
At present, there are enterprises and platforms recycle waste products through building their own blockchain or other existing blockchain platforms. Our research is also based on this practice.
Line 80-91: Considering the technical advantages of blockchain in achieving end-to-end traceability and improving the transparency of the supply chain, companies have used it for recycling supervision of waste products. China's Hainan green technology and Thunder chain co-operates to recycle waste textiles, which realized effective supervision of the whole recycling process and increased the amount of textile recycling. JD & AI recycling, by developing the JD chain tracing system to track the recycling process of recycled mobile phones and other recycled electronic products, has won the trust of consumers in recycling and greatly improved the reputation of the enterprise. Laiyue recycling platform applies blockchain technology to the recycling industry to check the authenticity of recycling operations. The "battery home" service platform in Guangdong Province, China uses the blockchain to establish a battery recycling system, which realizes the supervision of the recycling process of waste batteries.
Adding more quantitative data in Management Insights.
Line1087-1091: For example, BASF ag in Canada has increased the recycling utilization of plastic products and improved the circularity of its supply chain through blockchain platform ‘reciChain’, the current recycling rate is less than 11%. China's Hainan green technology unlocks the value of 6.5 billion used items of clothing in China with blockchain.
Point 5: â‘ Expand the discussion on the implications of the research for practitioners and policymakers. This could include recommendations for how companies can implement the proposed approach in their supply chains and how governments can support the development of platform-based closed-loop supply chains.
â‘¡Please provide examples and case studies of businesses or organizations successfully implementing the proposed approach. This would help illustrate the research's practical applications and make it more accessible to the readers.
Response 5: We added some recommendations to governments and companies with your suggestion.
Line 1102-1108: From the management insights in Table 4, we must give some suggestions to governments and companies, that is, considering the recycling of waste products from the perspective of environmental protection and resource saving, the government should adopt policies to encourage recyclers to implement blockchain and give them more compensation. Companies should also make contributions to the development of circular economy on the basis of ensuring profits, different enterprises should do what they can do to build blockchain.
The businesses or organizations successfully implementing the proposed approach are proposed in manuscript, such as JD&AI and China's Hainan green technology.
Line 80-91: Considering the technical advantages of blockchain in achieving end-to-end traceability and improving the transparency of the supply chain, companies have used it for recycling supervision of waste products. China's Hainan green technology and Thunder chain co-operates to recycle waste textiles, which realized effective supervision of the whole recycling process and increased the amount of textile recycling. JD & AI recycling, by developing the JD chain tracing system to track the recycling process of recycled mobile phones and other recycled electronic products, has won the trust of consumers in recycling and greatly improved the reputation of the enterprise. Laiyue recycling platform applies blockchain technology to the recycling industry to check the authenticity of recycling operations. The "battery home" service platform in Guangdong Province, China uses the blockchain to establish a battery recycling system, which realizes the supervision of the recycling process of waste batteries.
Point 6: Consider the limitations of the research and discuss the potential for further research in this area. This could include suggestions for future studies that build on the findings of this paper or explore other aspects of platform-based closed-loop supply chains.
Response 6: In Conclusion, we added the limitations of the research and discussed the potential for further research in this area.
Line 1075-1079: Of course, in order to study the impact of blockchain on the recycling of waste products, we only focused on the selection of recycling channels, and failed to study the differences in sales modes. At the same time, we adopted the dynamic game theory from a long-term perspective, there are limitations in parameter setting, which is a problem we will overcome in the future.
Point 7: The presentation is unsatisfactory.
Response 7: With your suggestion, we modified several figures in the manuscript.
Figure 2. The choice of model and model .
Figure 3. The choice of models for corporate decisions and social performance of the manufacturer and the platform.
Point 8. Give the article a light language revision to eliminate a few long, complicated sentences that make it difficult to follow. Transitions between sentences are significant, and the author should ensure that the article is updated with the appropriate transition. Please proofread the manuscript, as there are several grammatical and typographical errors.
Response 8: With your suggestion, we modified several grammatical and typographical errors.
Line 9-12: In order to solve the false recycling problem that the real recycling volume is inconsistent with the theoretical one, Blockchain is widely used in practice due to the characteristics of transparency, traceability and tamper resistance, in order to study its value in academic, this paper focuses on a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a manufacturer and an online platform.
Line 173-176: First of all, the blockchain adoption to avoid false recycling fill the gap between blockchain implementation and backward supply chain management. What's more, it's worth stating that we introduced blockchain from the perspective of avoiding false recycling, which explores the application of blockchain only in the backward chain.
Line 565-568: Thus, it is illustrated that the manufacturer is always better off collecting the waste products without blockchain implementation. Compared to the platform-recycling channel, the manufacturer can get all the profits of the waste products under the manufacturer-recycling channel, so that the manufacturer will choose to recycle the waste products.
Line 710-712: The results show that the implementation of blockchain under different recycling channels can incentivize the platform to increase online marketing efforts, while incentivizing the recycler to increase recycling efforts.
Finally, we appreciate for Reviewer’s enthusiastic work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper focuses on a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a manufacturer and an online platform. By discussing the implementation conditions of blockchain, the impact on enterprise decision-making and manufacturer's recycling channel selection, the triple benefits of economy, environment and society in CLSC with blockchain empowerment is achieved.
It is concluded that the larger the difference between the real recycling volume and the theoretical one, the more necessary the implementation of blockchain will be. At the same time, three major effects of blockchain implementation are defined as decision incentive effect, marketing leverage effect and incentive alignment effect which reveal the impact of blockchain on increasing the motivation of CLSC members to exert efforts, expanding market size by improving brand goodwill, and avoiding the inconsistency between the manufacturer and the platform in the preference of recycling channel.
The paper is interesting, well written with a good deal of contributions. The work seems to be authentic and a huge modeling and formulation efforts can be notices in the authors work. However, there are minor issues that need to be addressed to improve the quality of the paper.
Make sure to list the model assumptions
The measure of goodwill has to better explained
Explain how the variable zeta is estimated.
Define what G_0 is.
Explain why there will be false recycling.
Explain why there is a loss in Fig. 1. I don’t see it in the text.
Why did you choose the demand market of such formulation in equation 2. Please explain.
Don’t use the word “chapter” as a replacement of “section”.
The numerical example has to include some justifications for the selection of the values of the initial parameters.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
We are very grateful to your comments and suggestions for the manuscript entitled “Achieving triple benefits in a platform-based closed-loop supply chain：The optimal combination between recycling channel and blockchain” (sustainability-2171051). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully，summarized them and made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the manuscript. The main corrections of the paper and responses to reviewer comments are as follows:
Point 1: Make sure to list the model assumptions.
Response 1: The third section, Model Framework, has listed the main research objects and model assumptions of the paper. Details are as follows:
The main research objects:
Line 374-376: This paper investigates a dynamic CLSC system consisting of a manufacturer () and an online platform (), where the manufacturer is responsible for producing and remanufacturing, the platform is responsible for online marketing.
The model assumptions:
Line 428-430: This process is captured by defining as a state variable, and its evolution is controlled by the following linear differential equation:
(1)
Line 453-454: The brand goodwill with blockchain is portrayed as
(1’)
Line 456-458: The research assumes that the market demand at each moment is positively correlated with brand goodwill and negatively correlated with product retail price:
(2)
Line 466-469: In reverse recycling chain, it is assumed that the theoretical volume returned by consumers is positively influenced by the recycling effort of the recycler (manufacturer/platform) [50], which is assumed as
(3)
Point 2: â‘ The measure of goodwill has to better explained.
â‘¡Explain how the variable is estimated.
â‘¢Define what G_0 is.
â‘£Explain why there will be false recycling.
Response 2: With your suggestion, we modified and added some contents in the manuscript.
Line 417-421: One of the main points used to measure the implementation effect of blockchain in this paper is brand goodwill, which is considered to be an important indicator to reflect the image of enterprises in the hearts of consumers, and also an important factor affecting demand. Brand goodwill depends on many aspects, such as high product quality, good enterprise image, perfect management system and so on.
Line 444-453: Where represents the percentage of the real recycling volume to the theoretical recycling volume. Accordingly, the proportion of false recycling is characterized. We assume that consumers who observe false recycling will directly distrust the brand and accelerate the decline of brand goodwill, which is consistent with our observation in practice. However, when the recycler adopts blockchain, the tracking and tracing of the whole recycling process of blockchain and the technical characteristics of data that are difficult to tamper with make the real recovery rate infinitely close to the theoretical recovery rate. We assume that the implementation of blockchain makes the two consistent, thus avoiding false recycling, i.e., .
Line 438-439: is the initial goodwill of the brand when no effort is made.
Line 72-73: The root of false recycling is that the recycling process is not transparent and the whole recycling process cannot be effectively monitored.
Point 3: Explain why there is a loss in Fig. 1. I don’t see it in the text.
Response 3: With your suggestion, we have changed figure 2 ‘Model structure’ to figure 1.
Figure 1. Model structure
Point 4: Why did you choose the demand market of such formulation in equation 2. Please explain.
Response 4: We're based on the demand function in microeconomics, the market demand is negatively affected by the retail price of products. Meanwhile, considering the goodwill model, the higher the market demand with high goodwill is. The root form is used to facilitate the operation, in order to obtain the analytical solution.
Line 459-460: the research assumes that the market demand at each moment is positively correlated with brand goodwill and negatively correlated with product retail price [49]:
Point 5: Don’t use the word “chapter” as a replacement of “section”.
Response 5: We changed the “chapter” to “section”, details are as follows:
Line 500-504: This section focuses on further analyzing the optimal decisions of the retail price, platform’s marketing effort, the recycling effort, and optimal profits under the four models of manufacturer-recycling channel without blockchain (model ), platform-recycling channel without blockchain (model ), manufacture-recycling channel with blockchain (model ), platform-recycling channel with blockchain (model ).
Line 607: The difference in the intensity of the impact can be observed specifically in Section 6.
Line 672-675: Based on the hypothesis analysis of the four models, this section will further compare the corporate decisions and social performance under the two different recycling channels with and without blockchain adoption, thus to investigate the value of blockchain implementation.
Line 794-795: In this section, numerical examples are used to verify the analytical conclusions obtained in the previous sections.
Point 6: The numerical example has to include some justifications for the selection of the values of the initial parameters.
Response 6: With your suggestion, we modified the content in the manuscript, details are as follows:
Line 798-801: Based on the actual situation (Amazon will charge a percentage of the retail price as the commission according to the item’s category, for example, 15% for shoes, 6% for computers, 20% for jewelry, and 8% for electronics and camera) and referring some literatures [22, 53], we set the specific parameters as follows:
Finally, we appreciate for Reviewer’s enthusiastic work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is well written, but it needs minor revision.
1- Pay attention to English, bad construction of many sentences.
2- Figures should be enhanced or presented in another way.
3- Section 7 looks a pale part, the drawing objects should be improved and presented in better clarification
4- Recheck the format of writing equations and presentation
5- Revise your paper to improve organization and cohesion
6- Too many punctuation and grammar in the manuscript. Rectify them.
Author Response
Dear reviewer:
We are very grateful to your comments and suggestions for the manuscript entitled “Achieving Triple Benefits in a Platform-based Closed-loop Supply Chain: The Optimal Combination between Recycling Channel and Blockchain” (sustainability-2171051). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully, summarized them and made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in blue in the manuscript. The main corrections of the paper and responses to reviewer comments are as follows:
Point 1:â‘ Pay attention to English, bad construction of many sentences.
â‘¡Too many punctuation and grammar in the manuscript. Rectify them.
Response 1: With your suggestion, we carefully corrected the grammar and punctuation. Then we changed the structure of some sentences in the manuscript. Some details are described below:
Line 11-17: To study its value in academic, this paper focuses on a Closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a manufacturer and an online platform. This paper discusses the implementation conditions of blockchain, the impact on enterprise decision making and manufacturer recycling channel selection, the triple benefits of economy, environment and society in CLSC with blockchain empowerment is achieved. Because of the non-transparency of the supply chain, the problem of false recycling is always present. To further solve the problem of false recycling, the recycler decides whether to implement blockchain or not.
Driven by legislation and the economics of resource conservation and reuse, corporate recycling activities have become very common [4].
Line 51-53: For the benefit of consumers and the environment, Apple's proposed trade-in and recycling process requires that every refurbished product meet Apple's official new product testing standard.
Line 74-77: Blockchain was born along with bitcoin and has been applied to finance, government, people's livelihood, and medical care due to its technical characteristics such as transparency, trustworthiness, traceability, and tamper-proofing.
Line 82-87: China's Hainan Green Technology and Thunder chain cooperate to recycle waste textiles, which realized effective supervision of the whole recycling process and increased the amount of textile recycling. By developing the JD Chain Tracking System to track the recycling process of recycled mobile phones and other recycled electronic products, JD & AI Recycling has won consumers' trust in recycling and greatly improved the company's reputation.
Line 249-253: Centobelli et al. [11] believed that blockchain technology will improve the traceability and transparency of the recycling link in the supply chain, and increase consumer confidence in recycling. However, to date, there has been no theoretical research on how to solve the problem of false recycling and what impact blockchain will have on the operation and management of the CLSC.
Line 280-282: Most of the above studies focus on the choice of traditional recycling channels, and there are few studies that consider online platform recycling, which is becoming more popular in practice, as a choice of recycling channels.
Line 471-474: The cost of the recycling effort is [29], the cost of the marketing effort is [52], all cost functions satisfy the law of diminishing marginal returns [51], is the cost coefficient for the recycling effort and the marketing effort, respectively.
Line 563-569: If the recycler does not implement blockchain, there is a conflict in the choice of recycling channels: both the manufacturer and the platform tend to recycle waste products themselves, without blockchain, in order to keep the residual profits. While the manufacturer makes the choice of recycling channel in its favor, it does not make the platform better off. Therefore, the manufacturer and the platform cannot reach a stable willingness to cooperate on this recycling channel for waste products when blockchain is not implemented.
Line 990-996: In recent years, platforms have increasingly acted as online marketplaces in online commerce. Unlike the reseller format, where online platforms must bear the costs of order fulfillment such as inventory and transportation, platforms act as intermediaries and receive a commission from manufacturers in the marketplace, greatly reducing operational costs and risk. In addition, to promote environmental performance, the state strongly emphasizes energy conservation and promotes the separation and recycling of waste products nationwide.
Point 2: Figures should be enhanced or presented in another way.
Response 2: With your suggestion, we modified figures and their description. Details are as follows:
Line 785-786:
Figure 2. The choice of model and model .
As shown in Figure 2, and represent the boundaries, where the manufacturer and the platform choose the same recycling channel.
Line 805-809:
Figure 3. The choice of models for corporate decisions and social performance of the manufacturer and the platform.
Figure 3 shows: and represent the boundaries, where all the social performance can benefit from this.
Line 831-835:
From Figure 4, it can be seen that the environmental efficiency is positively related to the proportion, as the proportion obtained by the platform increases, the platform will be more willing to carry out recycling activities. The platform takes its own interests as a starting point, and the additional profits it gains will enhance its higher sense of social responsibility.
Point 3: Section 7 looks a pale part, the drawing objects should be improved and presented in better clarification.
Response 3: We made changed to Section 7 with your suggestion, details are as follows:
Line 922:
7.1 Manufacturer-recycling channel with unit cost of blockchain (Model )
Line 947:
7.2 Platform-recycling channel with unit cost of blockchain (Model )
Line 962-977:
7.3 The condition of blockchain adoption
Proposition 12. In model , the manufacturer will pay a unit cost for per product to a third-party blockchain technology service company, the manufacturer will use blockchain technology to track the recycling process if , in model , the platform will implement blockchain technology if ,while
Using numerical examples, we specifically describe the choice of blockchain technology by the manufacturer and the platform, and the relationship between the proportion of the residual value and a unit blockchain cost.
Figure 21. Recycling channel selection with a marginal cost of blockchain.
As shown in Figure 21, Infeasible Region represents a completely infeasible region in a reality. Feasible Region Ι indicates that both the manufacturer and the platform can benefit under model . Feasible Region ΙΙ and Feasible Region ΙΙΙ indicate that the manufacturer chooses the model , the platform does not benefit from this choice.
Point 4: Recheck the format of writing equations and presentation.
Response 4: With your suggestion, we modified some errors. Details are as follows:
Line 536-537:
Line 619-620:
Line 945-946:
Point 5: Revise your paper to improve organization and cohesion.
Response 5: With your suggestion, we modified some details in the manuscript. Details are as follows:
Line 141-146: It also defines the scope that enables the triple benefits of CLSC with blockchain empowerment. The main conclusions are: (1) Blockchain can effectively solve the phenomenon of false recycling and realize the supervision of the whole recycling process by its transparency, traceability and tamper-proofing. Under certain cost range, the blockchain will be adopted by the recycler. Moreover, the greater the difference between the real and theoretical volume of recovery, the greater the need for blockchain implementation.
Line 98-106: When blockchain is not implemented, the manufacturer's choice is the manufacturer-recycling channel, a finding consistent with the previous research. Under blockchain empowerment, we define a cost range for blockchain implementation, i.e., , where the manufacturer and the platform reach an agreement on manufacturer recycling with blockchain, and the triple benefits of the CLSC are optimally realized. Furthermore, to illustrate the robustness of the results, we perform an extension with the unit cost of the blockchain implementation. The recycler partners with an established blockchain technology services company. Thus, the cost of implementing blockchain is no longer a fixed cost, as it was in the baseline model, but a variable cost per unit. The results of the extended model are consistent with the baseline model, and the robustness of the results of this paper is tested.
Line 168-175: The analysis results demonstrated that the implementation of blockchain in the recycling process of waste products can not only build consumer trust in the recycling chain and promote the recycling of waste products, but also play its marketing leverage function by improving brand goodwill which can further promote the demand with the improvement of brand premium capacity in forward sales. Therefore, this paper studies blockchain in a CLSC considering forward and backward interactions and proposes corresponding management insights, which will be of great value to both forward sales and reverse recycling.
Line 180-184: On the one hand, the impact of online marketing on the dynamic change of brand goodwill is not extremely considered on the long-term benefits of the supply chain. On the other hand, given that platforms are closer to consumers, more and more platforms are acting as recyclers.
Line 1036-1047: Incentive alignment effect, i.e., if blockchain is not implemented, the manufacturer and the platform cannot improve together under the same recycling channel. Using blockchain, the manufacturer and the platform agree to recycle within a certain cost range. In this state, the platform benefits from the manufacturer's investment in the blockchain for recycling through the free-rider effect, and there is a balanced recycling channel in the CLSC that allows both to be better off.
Line 1049-1051: And the blockchain implementation shows that the adoption of blockchain on the recycling side of the CLSC has the dual function of promoting recycling in the backward direction, and promoting demand in the forward direction.
Line 1097-1103: From the management insights in Table 4, we need to give some suggestions to governments and companies, that is, considering the recycling of waste products from the perspective of environmental protection and resource conservation, the government should adopt policies to encourage recyclers to implement blockchain and give them more compensation. Enterprises should also contribute to the development of circular economy on the basis of securing profits, various enterprises should do what they can to build blockchain.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for taking the time to revise and address my comments. I have reviewed the updated manuscript, and I am satisfied with the changes made. The revisions have improved the overall quality of the work, and the additional clarifications have effectively addressed my concerns. I believe the paper is now ready for publication, and I have no further comments or suggestions.
Author Response
Thank you for taking the time to read our revisions and thank you for your approval.
