Environmental Efficiency Measures Research Articles

Evaluation of Atmospheric Environmental Efficiency and Spatiotemporal Differences in the Yangtze River Delta Region of China

The scientific measurement of regional atmospheric environmental efficiency is an important prerequisite for achieving energy conservation and haze reduction and regional green and high-quality development. Taking the cities in the Yangtze River Delta region from 2012 to 2021 as the research object, the atmospheric environmental efficiency is measured from both static and dynamic perspectives using the three-stage DEA model and the Malmquist index to analyze the characteristics of spatial and temporal differences. The study finds that the real atmospheric environmental efficiency of the Yangtze River Delta region is 0.915, and the elimination of environmental factors and random errors is crucial to the assessment of the efficiency. The atmospheric environmental efficiency of the Yangtze River Delta region is not 1, and there is still room for improvement, in which the pure technical efficiency is the main factor that leads to the overall low efficiency. Different environmental variables have different impacts on the atmospheric environmental efficiency, in which the positive impact of the industrial structure is the most significant. Urban agglomerations can be categorized into “high–high–high”, “high–low–high”, “low–low–high”, and “low–high–low”. The total factor productivity of the atmospheric environment showed a gradual growth trend during the study period, in which technological progress played the most important role. Based on this, countermeasures are proposed to better enhance the level of atmospheric environment management in the Yangtze River Delta region.

Spatial correlation network characteristics and influencing factors of water environmental efficiency in three major urban agglomerations in the Yangtze River Basin, China

Within the framework of achieving carbon peak and neutrality, studying the measurement and spatial correlation network of water environmental efficiency (WEE) is beneficial for protecting the water environment and strengthening the coordinated development between regions. This study quantifies WEE under carbon emission constraints in three major urban agglomerations in the Yangtze River Basin. Employing a modified gravity model paired with social network analysis (SNA) method, we establish a spatial correlation network. Furthermore, we explore the determinants of the spatial correlation network using Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) model. The research findings indicate that: (1) WEE exhibits fluctuations and increases, illustrating a trend of 'high on both sides and low in the middle.' (2) The spatial connection of WEE is tightening, demonstrating significant spatial spillover effects. Compared to Chengdu-Chongqing and the Midstream, the Yangtze River Delta has transitioned from a 'dual-core' setup to a multicentric network, which is more stable and showcases tighter interconnections. (3) Urbanization, population density, industrial transformation, and technological innovation emerge as the primary influencing factors of the spatial correlation network, displaying both temporal and regional heterogeneity. This study provides a theoretical framework and empirical support for water environmental protection and offers insights for policy-making towards green sustainable development.

Measuring environmental efficiency in transportation sector based on a meta-frontier SBM approach: focusing on the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YEB) and Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (JingJinJi)

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyze the environmental efficiency level and trend of the transportation sector in the upper–mid–downstream of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the JingJinJi region in China and assess the effectiveness of policies for protecting the low-carbon environment.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses the meta-frontier slack-based measure (SBM) approach to evaluate environmental efficiency, which targets and classifies specific regions into regional groups. First, this study employs the SBM with the undesirable outputs to construct the environmental efficiency measurement models of the four regions under the meta-frontier and group frontiers, respectively. Then, this study uses the technology gap ratio to evaluate the gap between the group frontier and the meta-frontier.FindingsThe analysis reveals several key findings: (1) the JingJinJi region and the downstream of the YEB had achieved the overall optimal production technology in transportation than the other two regions; (2) significant technology gaps in environmental efficiency were observed among these four regions in China; and (3) the downstream region of the YEB exhibited the lowest levels of energy consumption and excessive CO2 emissions.Originality/valueTo evaluate the differences in environmental efficiency resulting from regions and technological gaps in transportation, this study employs the meta-frontier model, which overcomes the limitation of traditional environmental efficiency methods. Furthermore, in the practical, the study provides the advantage of observing the disparities in transportation efficiency performed by the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei regions.

Measurement and decomposition of environmental efficiency in the power industry based on multi-hierarchy meta-frontier BAM model

The improvement of the environmental efficiency in the power industry is crucial in promoting energy conservation and emission reduction to achieve sustainable development. This study constructs a multi-hierarchy meta-frontier BAM model to measure environmental efficiency considering technological and regional heterogeneity. Using this model, we measure and decompose the environmental efficiency of the power industry in 30 Chinese provinces during 2008–2020. The main results are as follows. (1) Beijing and four other provinces have the highest environmental efficiency among the high-technology group, while Jiangsu and Hainan have the highest environmental efficiency among the medium-technology and low-technology groups, respectively. There are significant differences in environmental efficiency among provinces within each technology group. (2) Regional and technical inefficiencies in the high-technology and medium-technology groups are the main factors influencing inefficiency. However, the inefficiency of the low-technology group is 0.36, while technical inefficiency is 0.34. (3) The environmental efficiency of all three technical groups has improved as a result of technological progress. Environmental efficiency improvement is the largest in the high-technology group but only by 1%. This study extends conventional approaches of environmental efficiency assessment and enhances the comprehension of the operation of the power industry in various Chinese provinces. The research outcomes provide insights for formulating more precise and effective strategies towards the sustainable evolution of China's power sector.

Evaluating energy cost performance in China's thermal power industry: A global cost Malmquist approach

AbstractWith the inclusion of carbon neutrality in the Government Work Report for the first time at the two sessions held in March 2021 and the strengthening of environmental regulation as well as the increase of limits on polluting gas emissions, it has become increasingly important for China to effectively save energy and reduce carbon for sustainable growth under the “dual carbon” target. Since thermal power generation is the most important source of carbon emissions in China, the thermal power industry is the key to achieving the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical importance to study the performance of thermal power generation from the micro perspective of power plants. This paper provides a new perspective on the environmental efficiency measurement of thermal power plants by introducing the cost factors of inputs into the model and constructing a global cost Malmquist productivity index, which can effectively solve the problem of the infeasibility of linear programming and different measures of productivity change, to obtain the productivity performance of China's thermal power industry from 2013 to 2017. The empirical results indicate that: (1) The significant decrease in price effect (PE) is the main driving factor of this situation. (2) Except for the central region, the production technology, technical efficiency, and allocative efficiency related to thermal power generation have increased in the eastern and western regions. Therefore, improving CMG productivity in the central region is more challenging than in the other two regions and improving the PE can significantly improve CMG productivity in China's thermal power industry. This study reveals the spatiotemporal characteristics and influencing factors of production efficiency in China's thermal power industry, which can provide targeted policy guidance for managers to improve the sustainable development of power enterprises.

The average environmental efficiency technique and its application to Chinese provincial panel data.

In this study, we propose average environmental efficiency, a more comprehensive, fair, comparable, and robust environmental efficiency measurement considering all projection directions to the efficient frontier, and then it is used to evaluate the environmental efficiency of Chinese provinces from 2006 to 2017. Furthermore, we investigate the most influential factors of regional environmental efficiency via a feasible generalized least squares regression approach. The empirical results show that only nine Chinese provinces have average environmental efficiency greater than the national average, implying that two-thirds of the provinces still have much room for improvement. Additionally, environmental efficiency disparities exist between provinces and between four larger geographical areas. The east area achieved the best environmental efficiency over the studied period, better than the whole country, followed in order by the west area, central area, and northeast area. Moreover, we find that the energy consumption structure, government intervention, and economic openness significantly and negatively influence regional environmental efficiency. Finally, we provide policy implications in terms of energy consumption structure optimization, government supervision, and foreign investment introduction while considering the local conditions in different provinces.

Environmental efficiency measurement when producers control pollutants under heterogeneous conditions: a generalization of the materials balance approach

This article provides a generalization of the materials balance-based production model introduced by Coelli et al. (2007). Based on this, some new environmental efficiency (EE) measures are presented. The Coelli et al. (2007) EE measure and its extension by Rødseth (2016) produce biased efficiency estimates if the material flow coefficients (MFCs) are heterogeneous across decision-making units and non-discretionary. Furthermore, the Coelli et al. (2007) measure fails to reward emission reductions by emission control. To overcome these shortcomings, this paper proposes production models which allow for heterogeneous MFCs reflecting differences of external environmental factors or non-controllable heterogeneities in inputs and outputs, and which properly take into account emission abatement activities. Based on this, EE measures are provided and decomposed into (i) a part reflecting emission control efficiency (ECE), (ii) a part measuring material input efficiency (MIE), and (iii) a part reflecting the efficient allocation between material and non-material inputs (environmental allocative efficiency, EAE). The approach is illustrated by an empirical application to arable farming in Austria utilizing data from 90 farms for the year 2011. Soil erosion is considered an undesirable output and land a material input. The average EE, ECE, MIE, and EAE are 0.53, 0.96, 0.69, and 0.79, respectively. The results indicate that actual output can be potentially achieved with 47% less soil loss. Most of the potential to improve EE is due to differences in MIE and EAE. Removing inefficiencies in the implementation of existing, subsidized erosion controls allows soil loss to be reduced by 4%.

Cooperation and competition among urban agglomerations in environmental efficiency measurement: A cross-efficiency approach

Environmental efficiency has become a key indicator in describing the capacity of regional resource utilization with consideration of the negative externality to nature. Notably, with the development of urban agglomerations all over the world, the role and strategy of efficiency measurement for cities should be reorganized to deal with the complex relationships among cities based on urban agglomerations. In this paper, we construct a set of data envelopment analysis (DEA) models based on a peer-evaluation mode with consideration to the cooperative relationships among cities within the same urban agglomeration together with the competitive relationships between different urban agglomerations. Then, this paper we analyze the environmental efficiency of 48 Chinese mainland cities belonging to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration (BTHUA), Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomerations (YRDUA), and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GHMGBA). This was accomplished during 2014 to 2019 by using four inputs, two desirable outputs, and two undesirable outputs. The results of efficiency scores indicate that the environmental efficiency trend increased during the time series from 2014 to 2019 while the difference on environmental efficiency among different cities and urban agglomerations are significant. The BTHUA is the best performing urban agglomeration with much higher environmental efficiency scores in all the years. Besides, this paper selected 11 influencing factors based on three different angles to analyze the internal and external environments to environmental efficiency scores for providing further inspiration to managers.

Measurement of Environmental Efficiency Based on Stochastic Directional Distance Function: A Metafrontier Approach

This study measures environmental efficiency (EE) based on CO₂ emissions for five groups of countries between 1998 and 2018, using the stochastic metafrontier directional distance function. The model estimates environmental efficiency scores for a panel of 163 countries using data on GDP and CO₂ emissions as economic growth and the consumption of fossil fuels lead to increased CO₂ emissions. Moreover, meta inefficiency and technical gap differences (TGD) are compared, and the findings indicate that most countries have higher mean TGDs than their group’s average inefficiency measures. Furthermore, except for the low-income group, the OECD group is closest to the meta environmental frontier, suggesting that the OECD countries have advanced technologies to govern the environment. Alternatively, the findings also showed that upper-middle-income countries have the worst meta efficiency, implying that this group of countries sustain a high pollution growth path. Finally, we compare the difference between the stochastic metafrontier method and the pooling method and show that the pooling approach underestimates the severity of environmental problems.

Environmental efficiency of Xiangjiang River in China: a data envelopment analysis cross-efficiency approach

PurposeEnvironmental performance becomes a key issue for the sustainable development. Recently, incremental information technology is adopted to collect environmental data and improve environmental performance. Previous environmental efficiency measures mainly focus on individual decision-making units (DMUs). Benefited from the information technology, this paper develops a new environmental efficiency measure to explore the implicit alliances among DMUs and applies it to Xiangjiang River.Design/methodology/approachThis study formulates a new data envelopment analysis (DEA) environmental cross-efficiency measure that considers DMUs' alliances. Each DMUs' alliance is formulated by the DMUs who are supervised by the same manager. In cross-efficiency evaluation context, this paper adopts DMUs' alliances rather than individual DMUs to derive the environmental cross-efficiency measure considering undesirable outputs. Furthermore, the Tobit regression is conducted to analyze the influence of exogenous factors about the environmental cross-efficiency.FindingsThe findings show that (1) Chenzhou performs the best while Xiangtan performed the worst along Xiangjiang River. (2) The environmental efficiency of cities in Xiangjiang River is generally low. Increasing public budgetary expenditure can improve environmental efficiency of cities. (3) The larger the alliance size, the higher environmental efficiency. (4) The income level is negatively correlated with environmental efficiency, indicating that the economy is at the expense of the environment in Xiangjiang River.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to developing a new environmental DEA cross-efficiency measure considering DMUs' alliance, and combining DEA cross-efficiency and Tobit regression in environmental performance measurement of Xiangjiang River. This paper examines the exogenous factors that have influences on environmental efficiency of Xiangjiang River and derive policy implications to improve the sustainable operation.

Measuring environmental efficiency of thermal power plants in China: an improved Malmquist-Luenberger index with materials balance principle.

Improving environmental efficiency of thermal power plants is a crucial way to realize green and sustainable development. This paper investigates environmental efficiency of thermal power plants in China in 2011, 2013, and 2015 by conceptualizing a modified super-efficiency slacks-based measure with materials balance principle (MBP), which also eliminates the infeasibility in Malmquist-Luenberger index (MLI). An improved MLI is proposed based on the new efficiency measure. The results show that (1) the thermal power plants in most provinces have high environmental efficiency and productivity. (2) The improvement of productivity mainly originates from technical progress. This study provides a new perspective for environmental efficiency measurement on thermal power plants and advances related studies by (1) considering the first law of thermodynamics and introducing MBP in measuring environmental efficiency of thermal power plants and (2) defining a new MLI that captures the efficiency change and technical change in a super-efficiency framework. The thermal power plants in China can improve their environmental performance based on the results of current study.

Does haze pollution affect public health in China from the perspective of environmental efficiency?

This study attempts to introduce haze pollution into the environmental efficiency evaluation framework and measures PM2.5 environmental efficiency in China during 2001–2017 based on the slack-based measure (SBM)-undesirable model. The results show that the PM2.5 environmental efficiency value is 0.707 in China with a trend of slow decline over time, and there is regional diversity in PM2.5 environmental efficiency, with eastern, central and western values of 0.912, 0.554 and 0.601, respectively. Furthermore, this study examines the impact of PM2.5 environmental efficiency (EFF) on public health. The empirical findings indicate that EFF has a significant positive impact on public health. That is, if EFF is increased by 1%, respiratory disease mortality per 10,000 persons will be decreased by 2% provided that all other variables remain unchanged. In addition, medical technical personal in healthcare institutions per 1000 persons (RYS), population density (POP) and urbanization level (CITY) play an active role in promoting the level of public health. However, healthcare expenditure as a percentage of the per capita disposable income of rural households (NC), health expenditure as a percentage of GDP in fiscal expenditure (GJK) and the per capita tobacco expenditure of urban households (YC) all hinder the improvement of public health. Finally, the paper fails to observe a significant relationship between healthcare expenditure as a percentage of per capita disposable income of urban households (CZ), the enrolment rate of school-age children (EDU) and public health. Finally, this paper provides policy recommendations on controlling haze pollution, developing an efficient economy and improving public health in the future.

Environmental efficiency measurement based on DEA Malmquist model: a case study of Henan Province

Based on the panel data of different cities in Henan Province from 2010 to 2016, DEA model with variable scale compensation and Malmquist index model are used to measure environmental efficiency from static and dynamic perspectives. The results show that the overall environmental efficiency of Henan Province is at a high level, the technical efficiency is slightly improved, the allocation of input factors tends to be reasonable; the environmental efficiency is rising in dynamic change, among which the influence of technological progress on the environmental efficiency of Henan Province is more critical.

Impact of bad outputs and environmental regulation on efficiency of Indian leather firms: a directional distance function approach

This paper measures the environmental efficiency of the grossly polluting Indian leather industry which faces stringent environmental regulations. The environmental efficiency measure accounts for associated bad outputs (total suspended solids and chromium) with the good output (leather products) of firms and hence, provides an important benchmark for improving environmental performance. Drawing data from fieldwork in the Kanpur industry of India, the study estimates efficiency using the directional distance function approach under three directional vectors. The results reveal that the efficiency of firms is underestimated when bad outputs are omitted in the production technology. There is significant potential to increase leather production and reduce pollutants across firms. The study confirms that regulation improves the environmental efficiency of leather firms. However, regulation imposes an opportunity cost on firms of an average 3% loss in expanding leather output and reducing inputs. The study recommends mandating the use of cleaner technology and market-based instruments to improve environmental efficiency.

Environmental efficiency in South Asian agriculture: A potential of reducing CO2 emissions and fertilizers usage

South Asian governments have introduced renewable energy policies for the reduction of CO2 emissions while keeping up with the demand for food by enhancing agricultural production. Therefore, it is a need to examine the efficiency analysis of agriculture by incorporating CO2 emissions as a bad output for measuring sustainability in their agriculture practices. Also, the study calculated the potential reduction of CO2 emissions and the usage of fertilizers to make agricultural practices sustainable and environmentally efficient. This study estimated the productivity change, technical, and environmental efficiency of rice production for selected South Asian countries. Data were obtained from the FAO‐STAT website from 2002 to 2014. The change in rice productivity was measured through total factor productivity (TFP) scores by applying the Malmquist Index (MI) approach. Traditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) models and Slacks based model (SBM‐DEA) were applied for the measurement of technical and environmental efficiency, respectively. The results of the MI approach showed that Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka were found to have positive changes in TFP. The results of technical and environmental efficiency indicated that Bangladesh, Bhutan, and India were found efficient throughout the study period. Afghanistan and Pakistan were found environmentally most inefficient. The slack obtained from the SBM‐DEA indicated that Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka had a huge potential to reduce CO2 emissions and usage of fertilizers. Furthermore, this study provides an overview of the sustainable status of agriculture and also provides suggestions in selected South Asian countries.

Environmental efficiency and abatement potential analysis with a two-stage DEA model incorporating the material balance principle

Appropriate measurement of environmental efficiency in actual production process is of great significance for promoting sustainable development. However, traditional methods of measurement based on joint production function have deviation when the approach is applied to non-joint production activities or any production activity that violates the material balance principle (MBP). In this paper, we propose a two-stage DEA linear model to evaluate environmental efficiency, which adopts MBP and meanwhile considers both production stage and end-of-pipe abatement stage. Our model fits well to the non-joint production activities where the distribution ratio of shared inputs between these two stages is ambiguous. Further, we decompose the environmental efficiency (EE) into production efficiency (PE) and abatement efficiency (AE). Then, we explore the abatement potentials from cleaning production and end-of-pipe abatement, which is demonstrated by pollutant abatement potential index and emission reduction space. We also establish a global Malmquist production index to analyze the dynamic changes of EE, PE, and AE. The proposed approaches are applied to analyze the environmental efficiency of China’s thermal power industry. The results show that PE is generally high, and the effect of AE on EE is dominant. Especially, the abatement activities of SO2 and Soot have greater impact on EE. By opening the “black box”, our work makes a greater exposure to reduction potential.

Airline environmental efficiency measures considering negative data: An application of a modified network Modified Slacks-based measure model

In this paper, we propose a new network Modified Slacks-based Measure (MSBM) model to measure environmental efficiencies of airlines when the inputs or outputs of airlines are negative. The samples are 25 global airlines from 2008 to 2018 who have negative input or output. In contrast to traditional models, this model can deal with negative data and combine the network DEA with MSBM model. Based on this, we get several important results: (1) Norwegian performs the best among these 25 airlines during 2008–2018, while Air France-KLM has the lowest overall efficiency. (2) For most airlines, their environmental efficiencies are lower than production efficiencies. (3) In order to improve the overall efficiency, airlines should take the first step to improve the efficiency of the operations stage. (4) Delta is the company with the largest increase in efficiency from 2008 to 2018. (5) The airlines in Europe perform better than the airlines of Asia, America and Oceania in all efficiencies. • We build a network Modified Slacks-based Measure model that can deal with negative data in network model. • We consider two negative data: Net Profit and Greenhouse Emissions. • The empirical study is done with the samples of 25 global airlines from 2008 to 2018. • Norwegian performs the best among these 25 airlines.

Environmental Efficiency Measurement and Convergence Analysis of Interprovincial Road Transport in China

Although road transport plays a vital role in promoting the development of China’s national economy, it also produces much harmful output in the process of road transport. Various types of harmful output generate high social costs. In order to improve efficiency and protect the environment at the same time, a variety of undesirable outputs need to be considered when evaluating the environmental efficiency of road transport. In this paper, the performance of the road transport systems in 30 regions of China is evaluated considering multiple harmful outputs (noise, carbon emission, direct property losses), by employing the directional distance function. Further, a convergence analysis of the environmental efficiency of road transport is carried out. The empirical results show that the environmental efficiency of overall road transport in China increased from 0.8851 to 0.9633 from 2010 to 2017. Moreover, the environmental efficiency gaps between the eastern, central and western areas have narrowed over time, but still exist. Additionally, the results of σ convergence analysis show that convergence of environmental efficiency exists in the whole country and the western area, while only weak convergence exists in the eastern and central areas. Both absolute β convergence and conditional β convergence exist in the eastern, central and western areas. While the environmental efficiency improved over the study period, the environmental efficiencies of road transport in some provinces remain inefficient, which deserves more attention from those seeking to improve environmental efficiency. The paper concludes with suggestions for improving the environmental efficiency of road transport.

Opening the “black box” of environmental production technology in a nonparametric analysis

Due to rapid economic development, environmental pollution has become an increasingly serious issue for achieving sustainable economic growth. Appropriate measures of environmental efficiency are crucial for policy makers in order to balance economic and social development in line with constructing a more sustainable society. However, existing environmental efficiency measures suffer from shortcomings inherent in each methodology. To overcome these shortcomings, in this paper, a new environmental production technology is first proposed. We then we show that the weak-G disposability model, the by-production model and the natural/managerial disposability model are the environmental efficiency models based on special cases of our proposed environmental production technology. Next, based on the proposed environmental production technology, a new by-production model is developed. We explore its economic implications and clarify its advantages over existing environmental efficiency models. Finally, an empirical analysis of China's thermal power industry is conducted in order to illustrate the advantages and the applicability of our proposed approach.

Measurement of environmental efficiency in the countries of the European Union with the enhanced data envelopment analysis method (DEA) during the period 2005–2012

In recent years, there has been growing interest in measuring the environmental efficiency of the different territories, countries, and/or nations. This has led to the development of different methods applied to the evaluation of environmental efficiency such as the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. This method, supported by different studies, allows measuring relative environmental efficiency (eco-efficiency) and is consolidated as a very reliable method to measure the effectiveness of environmental policies in a specific geographical area. The objective of our study is the calculation of the environmental efficiency of the 28 member countries of the European Union (UE) through the DEA method. We will collect the data regarding the last years in which there are reliable comparative data in all. We will study in reference to them, the results of the environmental policies applied in the different countries, in order to make comparisons between countries and classify them according to their environmental efficiency. Using this, two variants of calculation within the DEA method to compare in a contrasted way the results of environmental efficiency for the 28 countries of the EU analyzed and propose possible solutions for improvement. Contributing in this work as main novelty the application of a new variant of the DEA method, which we will call improved analysis method (MAN) and that aims to agglutinate and assess more objectively, the results of the two DEA methods applied. The results show that there are 14 of the 28 countries that have a high relative environmental efficiency. However, we also find countries with very low environmental efficiency that should improve in the coming years. Coinciding precisely in this last group with countries recently admitted to the EU and where environmental policies have not yet been applied effectively and with positive results.