Six Business Model Types for Circular Building Component Reuse Actors

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

From my point of view, this article presents a research project that deals with an interesting and important topic. However, this article has some important lacks in this present form. Therefore, this text is not acceptable to be published yet and this is mainly because of the following issues:

 

1- The abstract requires improvements to fulfill the guidelines of the journal. Important contents such as the research objectives and the methodology need to be further clarified.

 

2- The introduction fails to properly present the literature gap that this research covers and its objectives. The final paragraph is not enough in this sense. This final paragraph is also confusing in relation to the scope of the research compared to other parts of the paper such as the title, abstract…

 

3- The text is confusing because of several reasons:

 

-        It lacks to properly explain its structure, which is also unclear in itself. The introduction section lacks ending with a clearer brief explanation of the article main structure referring to the article sections, subsections, parts… and their contents, which would help potential readers to understand the article. The second section also lacks a general explanation of the research steps and tools. Before the first subsection 2.1, a general explanation with a frame work of the different steps (interview, description of the case studies, classification into 6 types, analysis of each case study asset intensity and stages of involvement…). And the tools: interviewing, CBM…

-        It lacks to further explain and justify some important parts. This is especially the case of the materials and methods. The first subsection 2.1 lacks explaining more clearly some parts of the interviews, for example the questions, which were and how had been designed. The Ethical Code is also required. The second subsection lacks justifying why these analysis tools were used but no others, why CBM…

-        It has contents in unexpected and injustified places through the manuscript. From the reviewer’s point of view, table 2, 3 and figure 1 are results. Table 1 could also be considered results because implies classifying in 6 types the case studies. If so, the methodology could be the classification in general, without the case studies, applicable to other contexts after considering each context particularities. The reviewer also misses a section explaining and justifying the case studies, after the methodology. The results lack a table, similar to table 1 but clearly summarazing which of the 6 types is each case study.

-        Has parts that require further explanations. For instance, paragraph in lines 121-124 is confusing and requires rewriting for the full understanding of potential readers.

 

4- The discussion lacks comparing the results to more previous literature review and in a more specific way (lines 328, 341)

5- The main findings of this paper (first paragraph in the conclusions) would be clearer to potential readers if systematized in bullet points.

6- This paper would improve by clearly presenting its boundaries and scope in the introduction instead of the limitations in the conclusions.

 

7- Other comments: There are references that are too old and require to be changed for more recent references when possible

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article aims to explore the business patterns adopted in the current practice by existing circular building companies from the waste reuse sector in the authors’ geographical area, proposing the identification of six circular building models., in order to complement existing academic analyses through an empirical study.

The paper addresses a topic which is fully within the scope of the journal and fills a real knowledge gap with an interesting approach. It is a very good research work, with well-formulated research questions, a detailed analysis of results and very interesting argumentations. I only suggest that the authors better specify the logical path related to the definition of the six CBMs, as, although these are presented as the result of the case studies’ analysis, lines 135-139 apparently challenge this point (“For any individual business model to be considered as one of the six types it must demonstrate the characteristics of the general type..”), leading to think that the six models were previously assumed and that the article’s purpose is the assessment of the businesses’ belonging to them. I also suggest that, according to the description in Subsections 2.2, Table 2 and Table 3 should trade places in the text.

Although the work leaves wide space for discussion and further investigation, also by correctly identifying its limitations, it anyway identifies and indicates sound and objective reference points for future field investigations, especially with respect to cost analyses, market issues and the multiscale governments’ role in the circular building process.

English language is very good, clear and straightforward; no issues detected.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

From my point of view, this article has improved compared to the previous version following the reviewers' comments and it is now ready to start its publication process