A Systematic Review of the Discrepancies in Life Cycle Assessments of Green Concrete
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Table 4 should be put in one page think it is better to put Table 9 before the conclusion?Comments for author File: Comments.PDF
Author Response
Thank you very much for the much appreciated feedback. Table 4 is now not separated between 2 pages. Thank you for the suggestion for table 9 but the authors agreed it is better left after the conclusion just for formatting purposes. Please find attached the updated draft of the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This is an excellent review paper that highlights the pitfalls in Life Cycle Analysis of Concrete. An extensive review of the literature has been undertaken. The following are my comments that could be considered for further improvements -
It is surprising to find China missing in the list of countries from where papers have been reviewed (Fig 4c). This may be looked into as it is the biggest market of cement and concrete. Several minor language issues and other errors have been detected and marked in the attached file for the author's consideration. Figure numbers in Line 246, 249, 310 need to be corrected. Figure numbering on page 11 needs to be corrected. Legends in Figures 5 and 8 are missing or need to be corrected. Other than the above, the authors need to be congratulated on their painstaking work which is a very useful contribution to the field.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for the much appreciated feedback. All the comments from the reviewer were addressed and corrected as per the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
14: Wording. With ISO 14040 and 44 there are 2 norms standardizing LCA
17: IS datum the right word? And agreed by whom?
27: Does that mean that economic allocation was used?
35: There is still something in track change mode in the text
39: In the beginning the author state 4 tonnes of concrete are produced per year per human. With 7 billion people how do they get to 4 billion tonnes produced annually? Something doesn’t fit in the calculation.
42: if the number 300 is based only on a paper then the author cannot state in the abstract that it is “agreed”
51: If the authors state that they are more eco-friendly they need references!
49-73: Please rewrite this part. It is really hard to understand which 5 types the authors want to assess. In addition, the 5 types have very different properties and characteristics. So I don´t think it is possible to compare them
Fig 1: Normally a Figure should work as “stand alone”. As the abbreviations are not explained in the legend that is not the case in the current paper
109: Again, as the different types of concrete have different characteristics, it is not possible to compare them! The authors would have to make a mean for every of the 5 types. Not for all of them.
127: Why are they not comprehensive? The author cannot claim that without proof.
Figure 2: Due to the above mentioned reasons that figure makes no sense.
160: The authors should explain the difference between Cradle to cradle and cradle to grave
180: The authors state again the significant differences between the 5 types. Then they should also state how these influence their results
189: Again, then you can´t compare the results if the different types have a different lifetime. The authors should think about the scope of their paper!
306: Why are they not reliable? And often EPDs are calculated using exactly these databases. I think the Literature and references does not really support this statement.
327: It is clear that concrete from different countries has a different impacts (because as the author state e.g. different electricity mixes). However that has nothing to do with uncertainty.
360: A think a better recommendation would be to use Mass-based instead of price based allocation (as also stated by the ISO Norms)
376: It is only natural that depending on the transport distance there are differences in the impact of this stage.
401: It is the most common one. Not the best representing one.
413: One is from the newer IPCC report. That could be that the authors looked a different versions of TRACI and CML. In the most recent ones these values should be the same.
417: CML and IMPACT and TRACI are no midpoint indicators, they are method for the life cycle impact assessment. Use the correct wording.
448: The authors mean the normalisation step?
464: Language
Author Response
Please find attached a revised manuscript based on the reviewer's comments and a details point-by-point reply in the last 7 pages of the document.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
All comments were answered. The paper is fine in the current form
