Abstract
While China’s rapid industrialization has brought great pressure on environmental pollution, great variations appear in terms of environmental pollution levels among industries. The effective assessment of the environmental performance of different industries is not only conducive to identifying the major sources of pollution in China but also of great significance to the Chinese government in formulating differentiated industry environmental control policies in a targeted manner. Using data of 36 Chinese industries from 2006 to 2015 and a multiple data envelopment analysis (DEA) with a Gini criterion as well as a systematic clustering approach, this study first calculates the environmental efficiency score of Chinese industries and then identifies those pollution sources based on a ranking and clustering analysis. The main result indicates that the ranking of environmental efficiency of various industries overall varies greatly by time. In addition, using a clustering analysis, this study finds that 13 labor-intensive light industries and heavy chemical industries with high energy use and high emissions are medium- and high-pollution industries. Important policy implications are drawn to achieve green industrial development.
Highlights
In recent years, environmental degradation has become one of the important factors hindering the sustainable development of China’s economy
The results showed that the energy and environmental efficiency of China’s industry is generally low, the variation is large, and the efficiency has increased in five years
We report the estimated environmental efficiency scores of 36 industries from 2006 to 2015 by the multiple data envelopment analysis (DEA) model with a Gini criterion, and analyse the differences and changing patterns of the 36 industries by dividing them into six categories according to their changing patterns (Figures 1 and 2)
Summary
Environmental degradation has become one of the important factors hindering the sustainable development of China’s economy. Since the emission of environmental pollutants mainly comes from the industries, many scholars have taken the environmental efficiency evaluation of China’s industries as an important research direction and obtained abundant research results. Most of these studies examine the environmental efficiency of China’s industrial sector at the regional level, and few studies examine this issue from the industry perspective. China’s domestic industrial transfer has a tendency to shift high-polluting industries from the east to the west [1] This intensification of the trend has put pressure on China’s economic growth, and the transfer of industries is closely related to their environmental efficiency and regional environment policy. An industry-level analysis will help identify the pollution sources of the industrial sector, which will provide an important reference for the Chinese government to formulate more differentiated industry policies
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