Evaluating the eco-efficiency of China's industrial sectors: A two-stage network data envelopment analysis

Shao, Lei; Yu, Xiao; Feng, Chao

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.06.099

Cited by 163 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Eco-efficiency analysis enables the assessment of sustainability from combined perspectives of environment and economy and has been increasingly applied to evaluate the performance of waste management systems [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Among various feasible methods, environmental cost efficiency (ECE) is established specifically for the end-of-pipe (EOP) systems, which refer to the techniques achieving environmental benefit under a certain amount of economic cost [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, the pollutant-removal techniques, designed and operated to dispose wastewater or solid waste, exactly belong to the EOP system. The ECE method has been efficiently implemented regarding the optimized management of municipal solid waste [2]. Upon the evaluation of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), however, the ECE method has been rarely used.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Eco-Efficiency of End-of-Pipe Systems: An Extended Environmental Cost Efficiency Framework for Wastewater Treatment

Zhao

Zhang²,

Bai

2020

Water

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As a method for eco-efficiency analysis, environmental cost efficiency (ECE) indicators have been proposed for the end-of-pipe (EOP) systems that referred to the techniques achieving environmental benefit under economic cost. The wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) belongs to the EOP systems; however, few studies used the ECE indicators for the sustainability evaluation. Here, this study first proposed the following processes that had been excluded in the current ECE framework and thus limited the potential application in WWTP: (1) the direct impact of wastewater on receiving water, (2) the migration and transformation of water pollutants affected by the self-purification mechanisms of receiving water. To address the aforementioned processes, this study extended the framework of ECE indicators by means of incorporating the potential growth of microorganisms as the characterization state and integrating the water quality models with the characterization models. To investigate the applicability, a full-scale WWTP was selected as the study case and the eco-efficiency of the increasing levels of sewage treatment was evaluated. The case outcome showed that, with the extended ECE indicators, the analysis of eco-efficiency could be directly related to the specific locations and could determine the specific distance ranges within which the scenarios changing were considered efficient. Moreover, the eco-efficiency could be investigated under more concrete and flexible situations because the extended framework of ECE indicators was able to include more information, such as different types of receiving water or different environmental conditions of certain water body.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-Efficiency of End-of-Pipe Systems: An Extended Environmental Cost Efficiency Framework for Wastewater Treatment

Zhao

Zhang²,

Bai

2020

Water

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“…Production with pollutant byproducts and pollution assumed as a two-step system have provoked growing attention in the sustainability management field. Undesirable aspects have been considered when evaluating the performance of suppliers [73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81], eco-efficiency [82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91], and resource and environmental [92][93][94][95][96][97] efficiency. Some studies also introduced DEA efficiency evaluation by taking into account unwanted issues, and unwanted factors can be considered inputs or unwanted outputs in the DEA models [98][99][100][101][102][103][104].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

An integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Making Model for Sustainability Performance Assessment for Insurance Companies

et al. 2020

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To stay competitive in a business environment, continuous performance evaluation based on the triple bottom line standard of sustainability is necessary. There is a gap in addressing the computational expense caused by increased decision units due to increasing the performance evaluation indices to more accuracy in the evaluation. We successfully addressed these two gaps through (1) using principal component analysis (PCA) to cut the number of evaluation indices, and (2) since PCA itself has the problem of merely using the data distribution without considering the domain-related knowledge, we utilized Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to rank the indices through the expert’s domain-related knowledge. We propose an integrated approach for sustainability performance assessment in qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Fourteen insurance companies were evaluated using eight economic, three environmental, and four social indices. The indices were ranked by expert judgment though an analytical hierarchy process as subjective weighting, and then principal component analysis as objective weighting was used to reduce the number of indices. The obtained principal components were then used as variables in the data envelopment analysis model. So, subjective and objective evaluations were integrated. Finally, for validating the results, Spearman and Kendall’s Tau correlation tests were used. The results show that Dana, Razi, and Dey had the best sustainability performance.

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“…Its gross domestic product (GDP) exceeds 90 trillion RMB in 2018 [1], which is 244.8 times compared with that of 1978. The industrial sector plays an important role in China's economic development [2] but at the cost of heavily energy consumption and pollutant emissions. Although China's industrial structure optimization and energy structure adjustment have achieved some accomplishments in recent years, which can be verified from the declining industrial energy consumption proportion as shown in Figure 1, the energy consumption of the industrial sector still reached 2944.88 million tons of standard coal in 2018 [1], accounting for 63.5% of the total energy consumption.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Unified Efficiency Evaluation of China’s Industrial Waste Gas Considering Pollution Prevention and End-Of-Pipe Treatment

Tang

Chen

Yang

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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With the deepening of industrialization and urbanization in China, air pollution has become the most serious environmental issue due to huge energy consumption, which threatens the health of residents and the sustainable development of the country. Increasing attention has been paid to the efficiency evaluation of industrial system due to its fast development and severe air pollution emissions, but the efficiency evaluation on China’s industrial waste gas still has scope for improvement. This paper proposes a global non-radial Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA) model from the perspective of pollution prevention (PP) and end-of-pipe treatment (ET), to explore the potential reduction of generation and emission of air pollutants in China’s industrial system. Given the differences of different air pollution treatment capacities, the ET stage is further subdivided into three parallel sub-stages, corresponding to SO2, NOX, and soot and dust (SD), respectively. Then, grey relation analysis (GRA) is adopted to figure out the key factor affecting the unified efficiency. The main findings are summarized as follows: firstly, the unified efficiency of China’s industrial waste gas underperformed nationwide, and most provinces had the potential to reduce the generation and emission of industrial waste gas. Secondly, the PP efficiency outperformed the ET efficiency in many provinces and the efficiency gap between two stages increasingly narrowed except in 2014. Thirdly, the unified efficiency in the eastern area performed well, while the area disparities increased significantly after 2012. Fourthly, significant differences were found in three ET efficiencies and the ET efficiency of NOX was higher than that of SO2 and SD in the sample period. Finally, the results of GRA indicated that different air pollutants had distinct influence on the improvement of the unified efficiency in three areas. To promote the unified efficiency of industrial waste gas, some pertinent policy suggestions are put forward from the perspectives of sub-stages, air pollutants and areas.

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Evaluating the eco-efficiency of China's industrial sectors: A two-stage network data envelopment analysis

Cited by 163 publications

References 39 publications

Eco-Efficiency of End-of-Pipe Systems: An Extended Environmental Cost Efficiency Framework for Wastewater Treatment

Eco-Efficiency of End-of-Pipe Systems: An Extended Environmental Cost Efficiency Framework for Wastewater Treatment

An integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Making Model for Sustainability Performance Assessment for Insurance Companies

The Unified Efficiency Evaluation of China’s Industrial Waste Gas Considering Pollution Prevention and End-Of-Pipe Treatment

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