Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Building Construction: A Case Study in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this study, building construction is evaluated according to sustainability by AHP.

1) Although the subject is an interesting subject, the method, AHP, is very classic and basic. An integrated method, hybrid usage of different MCDM methods should be used to evaluation. Fuzzy parameters may be taken into account to evaluate the construction.

2) The originality of the study should be given as a new sub section. What is the originality of the study?

3) Literature review can be extended. Studies about sustainability using MCDM methods should be added.

4) Reasons of selecting AHP among vast range of MCDM methods should be given in a sub section.

**A native speaker should edit the manuscript in terms of english language.

Author Response

Please refer to the file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The abstract should be reviewed and adequately perused to correct its grammatical and syntax issues. The same applies to other parts of the manuscript. The authors should correct this and ensure the abstract is a synopsis of the totality of the manuscript. It is suggested that the traditional method and template for writing an abstract to be followed for simplicity.

The sentences from Lines 16-17 in the abstract contain values that are difficult to comprehend for the readers because the importance of the values is not relatable to the sentence.

There are a few references that are not represented and indicated in the reference list. Hossaini et al. (2015b) on Lines 38 and Onat et al. (2014a) on Line 39 are examples of the issues associated with the citation, references and reference list. The authors need to fix this and update the reference list too.

The literature aspect of the study is quite scanty and not rich enough to provide the depth needed to match the manuscript. The authors need to provide more literature from credible and relevant scholarly publications to lend credence to the study and to provide the necessary literature backing for the present study and manuscript.

The authors should also reorganize the Tables and Figures in the manuscript. For example, Table 1 is wrongly placed and should be corrected.

Finally and most especially, the manuscript requires the input of a senior Faculty member (who will proofread, provide inputs, suggestions and guidance on how to reorganize the various sections of the manuscript) and the service of a professional English language editor. This is because the organization of the whole manuscript is overwhelmingly disjointed. The authors need to employ a simple and straightforward format (Introduction, Literature, Methodology, Results and Discussions, Conclusions and Recommendations) for academic writing.

 

 

Author Response

Please refer to the file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This research aims to assess a typical residential building in terms of LCSA in China. The topic is both important and interesting. However, the following remarks must to be taken into account:

1)      The building type to be added to the keywords; residential buildings

2)      Validation of the results should be added. The Discussion section needs improvement. The results of the current study to be linked with literature and existing bodies of knowledge / practices.

 

3)      The Conclusion section needs improvement. To add recommendations for future work and further research. In addition, to add limitations of the current study.

Author Response

Please refer to the file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

I read the article entitled “ Life cycle sustainability assessment of building construction: a  case study in China “ with great interest and would like to thank the editors for giving me a chance to engage with this work.   In my opinion, it is a very relevant and important undertaking; especially in the current context. I congratulate the author(s) on their effort to establish such a logical and original method.  The article aimed to implement the life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) to a typical residential building project in China, using an integration model of the three areas of protections (AoPs) and three life cycle models: Environmental Model of Construction (EMoC), Cost Model of Construction (CMoC), and Social-impact Model of Construction (SMoC). Overall, the article presents a well-structured and comprehensive study that contributes to the field of LCSA in building construction. However, there are a few areas of improvement that the authors could consider:

1.              Limitations: The authors briefly mention some of the limitations of their study, such as the lack of site-specific data, which could limit the accuracy of the results. The article could benefit from a more detailed discussion of the study's limitations, which would provide a better understanding of the study's reliability and generalizability.

2.              Discussion of results: The article could provide a more in-depth discussion of the study's results. For example, the authors could explain why the building project has larger impacts on ozone depletion and freshwater eutrophication and provide suggestions for mitigating these impacts.

3.              Significance of the findings: While the study's findings are significant, the article does not discuss their potential implications for building construction in China or globally.

-Contribution to academia needs to be highlighted in the abstract, introduction and conclusion part of the study. The contribution of the study needs to be explained in such a way that to increase the originality of the study.

- Introduction doesn’t have any scientific structure to highlight the problem of the study or the gap in the literature. The introduction of the manuscript is not well-organized author may use the strategy of “ big umbrella” to focus on the main problem of the manuscript.  

-The thesis statement should come at the end of the introduction.

- Arguments and discussion of findings are not coherent, balanced and compelling.

- This study needs to be enriched by cited up-to-date references relevant to the research.

- It would be great to work a little bit more on the methodology part to be easily understandable for the readers. Maybe a graphical presentation will help readers to follow the research easily.

- The ‘discussion part also needs to develop considering the aim of the article and how the author responds to the hypothesis of the manuscript. The functionality of the methodology and tactics used in the article needs to be discussed.

 

- The conclusion needs to restructure, some essential information which supposes to be in the conclusion part is missing. For example, what are the findings to support the hypothesis of the study? how the author(s) described the contribution of their study to the existing literature? etc., the Conclusion of the study could be much more descriptive in the findings that the author (s) mentioned on the discussion part.

Author Response

Please refer t the file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript can be accepted in its present form.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors are commended for detailed incorporation of the reviewer comments.