Environmental Inefficiency Research Articles

Industrial Agglomeration, Land Consolidation, and Agricultural Energy Inefficiency in China: An Analysis Using By-Production Technology and Simultaneous Equations Model

Improving agricultural energy inefficiency is essential for achieving sustainable agricultural development and promoting major agricultural countries to achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. This paper analyzes agricultural energy inefficiency in China, using panel data from 30 provinces between 2000 and 2021. The by-production technology model is employed to measure and decompose inefficiency, and the simultaneous equations model and moderating effect model are utilized to study the impact mechanism of industrial agglomeration, land consolidation, and agricultural energy inefficiency. The findings reveal several key points: First, the average inefficiency of agricultural energy in China increased from 0.370 to 0.514, with economic inefficiency rising at a faster rate than environmental inefficiency. Second, agricultural industrial agglomeration serves to inhibit both agricultural energy economic inefficiency and environmental inefficiency, which, in turn, hampers the development of industrial agglomeration. This relationship shows heterogeneity across the eastern, central, and western regions, as well as between major and non-major grain production areas. Third, land consolidation—both nationally and specifically in the central, major grain-producing, and non-major grain-producing areas—effectively mitigates the deterioration of agricultural energy inefficiency caused by industrial agglomeration. In the eastern region, land consolidation can enhance the inhibitory effect of industrial agglomeration on energy inefficiency. This paper highlights the interconnections between industrial agglomeration, land consolidation, and agricultural energy inefficiency, providing valuable policy references for the development of sustainable agriculture and the proactive and steady advancement of carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals.

Measuring environmental inefficiency through machine learning: An approach based on efficiency analysis trees and by-production technology

The main objective of this study is to introduce machine learning-type extensions for the measurement of environmental inefficiency based on regression trees under shape constraints. The new methods developed are implemented using a by-production approach that distinguishes two technologies, one related to the generation of pollution and the other to the production of good outputs. In particular, we define two alternative approaches to measuring environmental inefficiency: by-production Efficiency Analysis Trees (by-production EAT) and by-production Convexified Efficiency Analysis Trees (by-production CEAT). The main advantage of the methods developed is that they do not suffer from the typical statistical problem of overfitting connected to Free Disposal Hull (FDH) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The performance of the new models is evaluated through a simulation study which shows that the new approaches outperform FDH and DEA in terms of mean squared error and bias. We also illustrate the practical usefulness of the new techniques through empirical application to 43 developing and developed countries over a fifteen-year period - from 2000 to 2014. Our empirical findings using real data clearly indicate the higher discriminating power of the by-production EAT and CEAT models as compared respectively to FDH and DEA.

Frontier model of the environmental inefficiency effects on livestock bioeconomy.

This work was focused on measuring environmental inefficiency in Mexican dairy farms, considering climate change variables related to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) and planetary geomagnetic activity. The applied methodology measures the eco-efficiency of Mexican dairy farms using the empirical application of a stochastic frontier model of the bioeconomy. The productive sector of the bioeconomy studied was the eco-intensification of the livestock production system (dairies). The environmental inefficiency effect was assumed to be a distribution-independent truncation of a normal distribution with constant variance, while the mean was a linear environmental function of the observable variable. The results showed that the coefficients of the frontier model were highly significant, highlighting the investment in livestock (50%). The inefficiency model had an impact on climate variation with greenhouse gas emissions CH4 (1.96%). The results of the environmental technical efficiency in geometric average were 81.28%. The producers that reached the border with a technical efficiency equal to 1 are the references for the rest, marking the relative technical efficiency. It was concluded that the coefficients in the model were very significant, showing the level of investment in livestock (50%). The low-performance model estimates the impact of climate change on GHG emissions CH4 (1.96%) explaining the trend of increasing GHG emissions, keeping in view that the management of food and cattle during the study period were affected by summer feeding, which allowed considering the activity of GHG emissions. According to the results, the geometric mean environmental performance of engineering is 81.28%.

Environmental performance of countries. Examining the effect of diverse institutional factors in a metafrontier approach

This study employs an innovative metafrontier methodology, inspired by Huang et al. (2014) [10], to investigate the combined impact of economic policy uncertainty, political orientation, and institutional quality on the environmental performance of 136 emergent and non-emerging countries from 1990 to 2018. Using such a parametric approach, the research evaluates countries’ efficiency both within specific geographical contexts and on an individual basis. The empirical findings reveal that North America and the Middle East & North Africa are more efficient at implementing environmental pollution-reduction technology. Furthermore, in a metafrontier scenario, economic policy uncertainty, institutional quality, and political orientation significantly affect regional environmental inefficiencies. Notably, economic policy uncertainty reduces environmental inefficiency in South Asia but improves it elsewhere, while better institutions are associated with reduced CO2 emissions and enhanced efficiency. Additionally, a left-leaning approach demonstrates a positive impact on reducing environmental inefficiencies in South Asia and Latin America & Caribbean. By shedding light on the intricate interplay between economic policies, environmental outcomes, and global disparities, this study advances our understanding and poses key research inquiries while offering potential policy implications.

Unraveling the impact of economic policy uncertainty on environmental efficiency: How do institutional quality and political orientation matter?

AbstractEconomic policy uncertainty significantly influences governmental decisions regarding environmental sustainability, particularly in CO2 emissions reduction efforts. This study examines the impact of economic policy uncertainty on environmental inefficiency across 136 emergent and non‐emerging countries from 1990 to 2018, using an unbalanced and heterogeneous sample. Additionally, we explore the moderating effects of institutional quality and political orientation on this relationship. Employing a directional distance function in a parametric context, our analysis reveals that economic policy uncertainty exacerbates environmental inefficiency. However, we find that institutional quality and political orientation act as important moderating factors, fostering greater environmental sustainability. Sensitivity analyses support these empirical findings, providing insights into potential implications for economic policy and guiding regulatory and policymaking efforts toward achieving enhanced environmental sustainability.

On the palm oil-biodiversity trade-off: Environmental performance of smallholder producers

Oil palm remains an important source of rural income in South East Asia. At the same time, Indonesia has become a hotspot for large-scale species extinction and a loss of biodiversity in favor of agricultural production. The present study sets out to assess the environmental performance of smallholder oil palm production with respect to biodiversity. Using a panel dataset that combines conventional farm data together with an account of plant diversity, we estimate a restricted hyperbolic environmental distance function. We integrate loss of biodiversity as an undesirable output into the production model which allows explaining shortfalls in environmental performance and the derivation of shadow prices of biodiversity conservation. We find a substantial environmental inefficiency, which is partly explained by both chemical and manual weeding practices, highlighting the potential for improvements in both the environmental and the economic dimension. Moreover, the value for conserving one species of the average biodiversity on a farmers plantation was 325 USD in 2018. Payments for ecosystem services schemes could be a viable policy response to conserve meaningful levels of biodiversity while simultaneously allowing smallholders to increase palm oil output. In general, addressing drivers of environmental performance in PES designs amplifies its effect without reducing output.

Measuring the network capacity utilization, energy consumption and environmental inefficiency of global airlines

While several studies have utilized carbon emissions to analyze airline performance, to the best of our knowledge, there have been limited studies simultaneously examining airline capacity utilization, energy consumption, and carbon emissions. The sample of this study comprises 33 global airlines in 2018. Our proposed model extends the two-stage network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model by adding a capacity utilization metric in a nonconvex metafrontier framework. The results show that there is no difference in performance between alliance and nonalliance airline groups in terms of environmental and network capacity efficiencies. Two-thirds of the selected airlines operate inefficiently in terms of environmental efficiency, while 15 selected airlines experience inefficiencies in network capacity utilization. To reach the technology frontier, these airlines are required to scale their variable inputs to enhance their capacity outputs and mitigate carbon emissions. The results can serve as a guide for industry players and regulators to detect inefficiencies in the overall potential maximum capacity and production technology constraints that affect energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Analyzing the Tradeoff Between the Economic and Environmental Performance: The Case of the Chinese Manufacturing Sector

The so-called by-production approach, introduced by Murty and Russell [“On modeling pollution-generating technologies,” Department of Economics, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA, 2002], has provided researchers with an improved methodology for approximating polluting production technologies. However, the original by-production model is not capable of addressing the potential tradeoff between the economic and environmental performance since it does not impose any relationship between its economic and environmental subtechnologies. Although this link has been recently proposed in the extensions to the original by-production approach, the tradeoff framework remains ambiguous with respect to the weights that can be assigned to the economic and environmental subobjectives. This article proposes a novel approach for estimating the green productivity growth in the Chinese manufacturing sector based on the scenario analysis that simulates policy preferences. Our results suggest that environmental inefficiency is generally higher than economic inefficiency and that the annual growth rates of economic and environmental productivity are sensitive to the chosen scenario or the weights assigned to the different types of performance. We demonstrate that productivity growth can range from −0.43%, when only the environmental performance is considered to 2.56%, when only the economic performance is taken into account.

Environmental efficiency evaluation of China's power system considering factor's spatial dependence: A dynamic spatial network DEA approach

Evaluating and improving the environmental efficiency of the power system is the key to achieving sustainable development. However, the classic DEA approach is susceptible to producing biased results due to its inability to address spatial dependence across factors. Considering the spatial dependence of inputs and outputs, this paper proposes a dynamic spatial network DEA model with slacks-based measure (SNSBM) to examine the environmental efficiency of China's power systems, with a focus on the undesirable outputs of CO2, NOx, and SO2. The investigation incorporates the Moran's I test to account for the spatial interactions of patent counts, coal consumption, CO2 emissions, and renewable power generation. Compared to the classic network DEA, the SNSBM results reveal distinct spatial characteristics and a heightened level of differentiation, which highlights the importance of eliminating spatial dependence. From a dynamic perspective, environmental efficiency shows a visible surge in transmission and distribution divisions after 2015, confirming the success of China's market-oriented reform. In addition, CO2 is the largest contributor to the environmental inefficiency of the power systems, followed by NOx and SO2. This study highlights the importance of spatial dependence and provides many insightful policy recommendations for improving the environmental efficiency of China's power systems.

Assessing the factors of economic and environmental inefficiency of sunflower production in Pakistan: an epsilon-based measure model

Considering the growing pressure of the edible oil imports bill on Pakistan’s national accounts, the significance of sunflower cultivation is gaining more attention to meet the domestic edible oil demand. Given the declining area for sunflower production, this study explored the factors of economic and environmental inefficiencies affecting sunflower growers in Pakistan. The study adopted the epsilon-based measure (EBM) model at the first stage and the Tobit truncated regression model at the second stage to precisely estimate the economic and environmental inefficiencies in the data collected from 240 sunflower growers. Results found that out of 240, 69.9% of the sunflower growers are economically inefficient, while the average environmental inefficiency of sunflower growers is 56.3%. The findings further revealed that farmers’ age, cultivated land, and market distance are the driving factors of farmers’ economic and environmental inefficiencies. However, formal education, farming experience, and access to agricultural extension services decreased the farmer’s inefficiencies. Based on the present study’s findings, diverse policy options are presented to address the problem of contraction of the area under sunflower production.

Environmental inefficiencies for arrival flights at European airports.

In this paper, we analyze two months of trajectory data for aircraft landing in five major European airports. Based on open ADS-B data from the OpenSky Network and open performance models, we enrich all trajectories with automatically detected procedure information, fuel consumption, and emissions for supported aircraft types. To assess the inefficiencies associated with holding patterns, point merges, and continuous descent operations across different airports, we propose methodologies to quantify and compare these environmental inefficiencies. Holding patterns are found to have a higher negative impact on the environment than point merge and continuous descent operations. Furthermore, the paper provides recommendations for procedure evaluations of future airports, which could help policymakers and relevant stakeholders to evaluate the environmental performances of arrival procedures based on open data and open models.

Economic, environmental, and social inefficiency assessment of Dutch dairy farms based on the dynamic by-production model

The growth of milk production in the Netherlands which followed the abolition of the milk quota in 2015, put pressure on the sustainable development of dairy farms. In this paper, we use the by-production model to measure dynamic economic, environmental, and social inefficiency of Dutch dairy farms. Subsequently, we investigate associations between inefficiency and socio-economic factors using a bootstrap truncated regression model. We find farms to perform more poorly in the environmental dimension than in the economic and social dimensions. The share of household labor in total labor, farm size, replacement rate of dairy cows, specialization and government support are associated with a higher environmental inefficiency. Intensity of advisory services and number of entrepreneurs are associated with a lower environmental inefficiency. Age of the oldest entrepreneur, intensity of advisory services and share of household labor in total labor are all associated with a higher economic inefficiency and farm size is associated with a lower economic inefficiency. Social inefficiency is negatively associated with financial structure, specialization, and government support. The results provide insights into potential pathways towards improving the economic, environmental, and social performance.

Frontier model of the environmental inefficiency effects on livestock bioeconomy

Background: This work was focused on measuring environmental inefficiency in Mexican dairy farms, considering climate change variables related to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) and planetary geomagnetic activity. Methods: The applied methodology measures the eco-efficiency of Mexican dairy farms using the empirical application of a stochastic frontier model of the bioeconomy. The productive sector of the bioeconomy studied was the eco-intensification of the livestock production system (dairies). The environmental inefficiency effect was assumed to be a distribution-independent truncation of a normal distribution with constant variance, while the mean was a linear environmental function of the observable variable. Results: The results showed that the coefficients of the frontier model were highly significant, highlighting the investment in livestock (50%). The inefficiency model had an impact on climate variation with greenhouse gas emissions CH4 (1.96%). The results of the environmental technical efficiency in geometric average were 81.28%. The producers that reached the border with a technical efficiency equal to 1 are the references for the rest, marking the relative technical efficiency. Conclusions: It was concluded that the coefficients in the model were very significant, showing the level of investment in livestock (50%). The low-performance model estimates the impact of climate change on GHG emissions CH4 (1.96%) explaining the trend of increasing GHG emissions, keeping in view that the management of food and cattle during the study period were affected by summer feeding, which allowed considering the activity of GHG emissions. According to the results, the geometric mean environmental performance of engineering is 81.28%.

Environmental efficiency of ports under the dual carbon goals: Taking China’s Bohai-rim ports as an example

In 2020, China proposed the country’s dual carbon goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. Under the dual carbon goals, the low-carbon transformation has become an important development direction for Chinese ports. Taking eight ports in China’s Bohai-rim port group as an example, this study adopts the Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model to evaluate the port efficiency considering the environmental factor of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The results show that the average scale environmental efficiency of the eight ports during 2005-2020 is the highest, followed by local pure technical environmental efficiency and global technical environmental efficiency. The efficiency values of each port under different environmental efficiency categories vary greatly. Overall, each port is in a state of environmental inefficiency. From port technology, input-output optimization, supervision, and management of relevant departments, recommendations for improving the environmental efficiency of ports under the dual carbon goals are put forward.

Environmental efficiency in greenhouse tomato production using soilless farming technology

The environmental efficiency of agricultural production and the relationship between management type and monetary value of achieving environmental efficiency are important parameters to assess the competitiveness of farms. The objectives of the study were to (i) estimate the environmental efficiency of greenhouse tomato farms, (ii) explore the determinants of the environmental efficiency level of greenhouse tomato farms, and (iii) calculate the monetary value of providing less greenhouse gas emission (GHG) and effective waste management in greenhouse tomato farms. The research data were obtained from 42 professional and 55 semi-professional greenhouse farms producing tomatoes using soilless farming technology in Turkey by using questionnaires. The environmental impact of tomato production was assessed using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The environmental efficiency was estimated by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and the Tobit model was used to elicit the determinants of environmental efficiency. The results showed that 1.72 kg CO2-equivalents of GHG were emitted for 1 kg fresh tomatoes from the cradle to the farm gate, and 1753.1 tons of organic waste were generated. The average environmental efficiency score of the greenhouse farms was 0.86, while the score was higher for professional farms and glass greenhouses. The results also revealed that the monetary value of GHG reduction and composting of all organic wastes in the greenhouse tomato farms were 1037.14 and 5700 US dollars, respectively. The values were higher for the professional greenhouse farms and glass greenhouses. The variables of education level of farmers, the size of glass greenhouses, net income, waste recycling investment, environmental knowledge level of farmers, and presence of green production practices positively affected the environmental efficiency. The findings suggest that awareness, extension, and training activities should be organized to reduce the farm-level negative impact of environmental inefficiency. Shifting from a static cost impact paradigm to a dynamic environmental management paradigm in greenhouse tomato farms may improve environmental efficiency, especially in semi-professional farms, and increase the competitive power of greenhouse farms.

The Violent Narrowing of Animal Life

Mainstream environmentalism has long prioritized wild animals and their habitats while paying little attention to the explosive growth of global livestock production and consumption. However, this blind spot to livestock is changing quickly, in large part because of the rising general awareness of the resource and emissions intensity of animal-based foods and how it relates the interwoven crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. This paper considers both the fertile ground for animal advocacy to be found in the mounting scientific evidence about environmental inefficiencies of animal-based foods, and the need to be attentive to the risks it bears. The principal danger of efficiency-centred narratives is that if they are largely focused on climate change and biodiversity loss, the goal of reducing relative associated impacts can appear in a way that helps to further stoke the growth of industrially produced birds, which should be understood in relation to the already well-established poultrification of global livestock supply and demand. This paper highlights the importance of challenging this partial lens and response, and stresses the need to connect macro-scale environmental concerns to critical reflection about the ways that animal lives are organized in industrial livestock production. The concern for declining wild animal populations among environmentalists is a key lever for this, as industrial livestock can be shown to bear on the loss and fragmentation of habitats while at the same condemning a large and growing share of all birds and mammals to a short and agonizing existence. What emerges is an indelible image of a pathological mode of production that is violently narrowing how other animals get to inhabit the earth.

Environmental Inefficiency of the World Construction Industry

Environmental Inefficiency of the World Construction Industry

Frontier model of the environmental inefficiency effects on livestock bioeconomy

Background: This work was focused on measuring environmental inefficiency in Mexican dairy farms, considering climate change variables related to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) and planetary geomagnetic activity. Methods: The applied methodology measures the eco-efficiency of Mexican dairy farms using the empirical application of a stochastic frontier model of the bioeconomy. The productive sector of the bioeconomy studied was the eco-intensification of the livestock production system (dairies). The environmental inefficiency effect was assumed to be a distribution-independent truncation of a normal distribution with constant variance, while the mean was a linear environmental function of the observable variable. Results: The results showed that the coefficients of the frontier model were highly significant, highlighting the investment in livestock (50%). The inefficiency model had an impact on climate variation with greenhouse gas emissions CH4 (1.96%). The results of the environmental technical efficiency in geometric average were 81.28%. The producers that reached the border with a technical efficiency equal to 1 are the references for the rest, marking the relative technical efficiency. Conclusions: It was concluded that the coefficients in the model were very significant, showing the level of investment in livestock (50%). The low-performance model estimates the impact of climate change on GHG emissions CH4 (1.96%) explaining the trend of increasing GHG emissions, keeping in view that the management of food and cattle during the study period were affected by summer feeding, which allowed considering the activity of GHG emissions. According to the results, the geometric mean environmental performance of engineering is 81.28%.

Environmental Inefficiencies of Short Sea Shipping Vessels by Optimization Processes Based on Resistance Prediction Methods

Fulfilment of the progressive environmental normative involves a singular challenge for Short Sea Shipping (SSS), since it must maintain its competitiveness versus other transport alternatives. For this reason, over the last decade SSS vessels have been the subject of numerous analyses, in terms of operative research, and optimizations, from the marine engineering standpoint. Despite widespread awareness about the impact of a vessel’s resistance on environmental performance, many of the previous analyses were based on resistance prediction methods with low accuracy levels. This fact necessarily involves deviations regarding the expected sustainability of vessels. This paper attempts to quantify (in monetary terms) the environmental consequences due to this low level of accuracy. To meet this aim, it analyzes the environmental performance of an SSS feeder vessel, which was obtained from an optimization process based on standard resistance prediction techniques, when its propulsion power requirements for sailing at optimized speed were assessed through the Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes method in Computational Fluid Dynamic simulations. The findings show that standard resistance prediction methods without consideration of hull shape must be avoided, not only in the optimization process, but also for operative research, especially in free sailing analysis.

Evaluation of Sustainable Economic and Environmental Development Evidence From OECD Countries

This study analyzes the economic and environmental performance of OECD countries over 2000–2019. A by-production approach is applied and the efficiency score is decomposed into its economic and environmental components. Unlike previous studies, we apply a refined model that allows for the correct modeling of by-production technology. The refined model can provide clear economic illustrations for balancing economic growth and environmental protection. The results indicate that environmental inefficiency is higher than the potential economic improvement. The environmental efficiency of OECD countries is improving, while economic performance is worsening over time. Therefore, instead of highly polluting energy, clean energy should be used to build a low-carbon economy. Worldwide, carbon-emitting countries and developed countries should shoulder their responsibilities to reduce carbon emissions and provide emission reduction funds for developing countries, while simultaneously sharing the green production technologies needed to reduce emissions.