Search

China’s paper industry consumes a lot of energy and emits huge amounts of pollutions. The Chinese government over the past decades has done a lot to promote energy efficiency of the industry. This paper studies the impact of industrial polices to improve energy efficiency. The energy efficiency change is firstly studied under a framework of total factor efficiency. On this basis, different econometric models are built to discuss the detailed energy efficiency characteristics of the paper industry. The main results are as follow: (i) ownership structure did influence the energy efficiency, but the influence is different in different conditions; (ii) energy efficiency of the paper industry can be improved by economies of scale; (iii) market competition can to some extent overcome the motivation and supervision problem that often occur in state-owned companies; (iv) energy price cannot play the role of resource allocation well in China. Finally, based on our findings, some suggestions are provided.

China's paper industry accounts for a larger proportion of the global paper industry and consumes large amounts of energy. Energy conservation and pollution reduction of the industry have become the focus of China's national development strategy. Energy efficiency is an important index which directly determines the amounts of energy consumption and pollution emissions. To understand the energy efficiency evolution of China's paper industry, this paper establishes an input-output data of the paper industry for 29 provinces in China and applies DEA method and econometric models to estimate and comprehensively discuss the energy efficiency issues based on the framework of total factor efficiency. Our results indicate that China's paper industry has a large energy saving potential even though its energy efficiency has improved during the period 1990–2013. The saving potential is about 65% under the meta-frontier and 44% under the group-frontier. Moreover, there are significant differences between different regions in production technology and energy efficiency. The performance of eastern China is better than other regions. But the technology gaps between the different regions are shrinking and converging over time. Finally, some policy recommendations are proposed to improve the energy efficiency of the industry.

China has become the world largest paper and paperboard producer. However, pulp and paper industry has involved high resource consumption and severe pollution especially for water. This research has assessed the eco-efficiency of China's pulp and paper industry at the national level and provincial level. An overview regarding the cleaner production of China's pulp and paper industry was presented to reveal the measures for reducing environmental impact in the last two decades. Slacks-based measure was used to analyze the efficiency levels of 16 provinces' pulp and paper industries. To uncover the underlying causes of eco-efficiency performance, Malmquist–Luenberger index was calculated to discover the drivers of productivity growth of pulp and paper industries. Our results showed that the pollution treatment of China's pulp and paper industry has made progress in terms of water consumption and water pollution, although the absolute amount of pollution discharge is still large. Chemical oxygen demand emissions are still the first critical influencing factor of pulp and paper industry's inefficiency. Furthermore, efficiency progress was the dominating contribution of the industry's productivity growth between 2010 and 2013. The policies for adjusting the industrial structure of pulp and paper industry have resulted in the scale effects through eliminating backward production capacity and accelerating merger and acquisitions. Moreover, the productivity of pulp and paper industry was underestimated when the undesirable outputs were ignored. It indicates that the stricter environmental regulations have positive effects on paper companies to internalize environmental pressures in the production activities through environmental management. In the future, pulp and paper companies should further internalize the cost of pollution treatment through scale effects and technology improvement.

Sustainability measurement in economics includes assessment of environmental and economic effects in an integrated manner. In this study, system level economic data are integrated with environmental impacts determined from a life cycle assessment (LCA) of a common product. We adopt a costing methodology that captures conventional costs, but additionally incorporates externality costs to present a convenient, easily interpretable metric. Green Net Value Added (GNVA) is a type of full cost accounting that incorporates total revenue, the cost of production, depreciation, and environmental externalities. We present externality costs disaggregated by upstream sectors, full cost of production, and GNVA to evaluate the relative sustainability of Bounty® paper towels manufactured at two production facilities. We found that the longer running, more established line had a higher GNVA. The predominant components contributing to externality costs come from the stationary sources in the supply chain: electricity generation (27–35%), refineries (20–21%), pulp and paper making (15–23%). Health-related externalities from Particulate Matter (PM2.5) and Carbon Dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions are to a great extent driven by electricity usage and emissions by the facilities, followed by pulp processing and transport. Supply chains for other facility purchases, product distribution, and end-of-life management contribute the least to the environmental health-related costs.

Considering that renewable energy is the primary energy source in the future, this study investigates biomass power for sustainable and secure energy supply. Biomass fuels in Malaysia include empty fruit bunch, mesocarp fiber, palm kernel shell, oil palm frond, oil palm trunk from palm oil plantation, and woody biomass from forests. The moisture content and heating value of palm oil-based biomass fuels are analyzed relative to their cost savings in a 10 MW biomass power plant. The net present value, internal rate of return, and payback period for various finance options and at various system efficiencies are also presented. Results indicate that for an empty fruit bunch priced at MYR 20/t without loan, the net present values are MYR 45.31 million, MYR 54.32 million, and MYR 57.74 million, with 20%, 30%, and 40% system efficiencies, respectively; the internal rates of returns are 21.88%, 22%, and 21.11%, respectively; and the payback periods are 4.16, 4.20, and 4.22 y, respectively. The 10 MW plant releases 50,130 t less CO 2 , 750 t less SO 2 , 218.65 t less NOx, and 22.83 t less CO emissions in the environment compared with the existing energy mix.

China has encountered the environmental issues and energy pressures in the middle-income stage. Strengthening environmental regulation is a crucial measure to prevent environment deterioration and energy dilemma. This paper investigates the three types of environmental regulations on energy consumption using feasible generalized least squares method during 1997–2015 in direct and indirect path. The main conclusions are as follows. In the direct path, the economical and supervised types of environmental regulations have inhibited energy consumption whilst legal environmental regulation has no significant impact. As for indirect path, the "rebound effect" of energy is greater than the energy conservation generated by technological innovation, which is embodied as an inhibitory effect. The effects of environmental regulation display regional difference. The legal and supervised types of environmental regulations have significant "cost effect" and "rebound effect" on energy consumption in the entire samples. On the contrary, the economical environmental regulation shows the opposite sigh in eastern regions. The counterfactual simulation results show that the net effects of environmental regulations on energy consumption are negative, which is beneficial for relieving energy pressures. Based on the findings, this paper provides pertinent policy implications.

The European Union is one of the major global players in environmental protection and sustainability policy, and increasingly addresses themes such as human wellbeing, global justice and development. Grounded in the degrowth literature, this paper asks how the European Union measures progress, economic development and the relevance of environmental protection. Specifically, this article aims at tracing degrowth elements in the Horizon 2020 program, i.e. the research and innovation agenda and funding scheme of the Union, which constitutes one of the European Union’s major instruments for steering economic development. Employing a frame analysis this research detects a minor agenda pointing beyond conventional growth perspectives; however, conventional growth remains the central focus in the Horizon 2020 framework even where “green growth” measures are discussed. This research shows that this pattern is especially evident in technology policy and schemes related to information and communication technology in particular. The article reflects on the rationales for why the European Union pursues only a minor degrowth agenda. It points to a neoliberal meta-frame and to the effects of path dependency related to the Union’s common market conceived of as a driver of prosperity. Finally, the paper identifies comparative policy analysis as a promising area for deeper integration of degrowth theory in political science research.

This paper investigates the relationship between the economic growth and CO2 emissions in Azerbaijan. A cointegration analysis is conducted over the period 1992–2013. For getting more robust results, Johansen, ARDLBT, DOLS, FMOLS and CCR methods are employed to explore cointegration and estimate long-run coefficients. We use cubic, quadratic and linear specifications and conclude that the last one is an adequate representation for the impact of the economic growth on CO2 emissions in Azerbaijan. The results from the different cointegration methods are consistent with each other and show that the economic growth has a positive and statistically significant impact on the emissions in the long-run implying that the EKC hypothesis does not hold for Azerbaijan. The income elasticity of CO2 emissions, using different methods, is found to be between 0.7 and 0.8. Moreover, we find that any short-run imbalance can be adjusted towards the long-run equilibrium path within less than one year. The paper concludes that measures to increase energy efficiency, carbon pricing instruments in production and international-domestic trade activities, and nationwide social awareness programs to instruct about the negative consequences of pollution can be considered as relevant environmental policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

The current controversies on “sustainable growth”, “green growth” and “degrowth” cover many issues in the relations between human behavior, societal regulation and technology in face of the need to overcome the environmental crisis. The point of departure of this paper is the observation that the roles of technology and of technological progress in realizing an ecologically sound development often are simply taken as mere assumptions or else are taken for granted. The objective of this paper is to critically scrutinize assumptions and expectations of the eco-modernist approach from the perspective of technology assessment in the context of the debate on growth and degrowth. By reconstructing the basic arguments, assumptions, and premises of the eco-modernist approach and their critical assessment, the analysis culminates in the diagnosis of the eco-modernist approach being morally hazardous because it expects to overcome the ecological crisis by technological progress and its acceleration only, ignoring the ambivalences of technology and the issue of unintended side effects. Following this result, conclusions will be drawn in two directions: from the experience of technology assessment for degrowth, and from degrowth thinking for technology assessment.

The needed transition from a fossil-to a bio-based economy fosters the utilization of biological resources derived from recycled low value by-products and waste streams. Chain actors face multiple challenges associated with the adoption of novel processing technologies. Bio-based technologies might be related to high switching costs, missing downstream processing technologies, lack of quality standards, missing industry standards, emerging regulatory frameworks. Moreover, as previously unrelated actors form new relationships, value chains are moving towards new structural changes. This paper thus seeks to explore the challenges associated with the emergence of novel value chains with an exploratory case study approach that reviews a new process of recovering phosphate - a typical scarce and fundamental resource - from rapeseed oil press cakes. The contribution of our paper is thus not only to provide conclusions for this specific case, but also, and more importantly, to present a blueprint for other cases of scarce resources that require the establishment of novel supply chains to foster cascading usage of by-products. Expert interviews with different value chain actors have been conducted to investigate arising challenges, and derive implications and a further research agenda. Despite the advantages of the bio-based process, interviews revealed several challenges associated with the emergence of novel value chains: hesitation of respondents in making new investments in terms of equipment and know-how, missing complementary competencies, and difficulties in integrating different industrial sectors to engage in cross-industry innovation, such as food processing (rapeseed oil cakes) and specialty chemicals/mineral (phosphate and its derivatives). These exploratory results open the way for some useful recommendations, enabling us to propose an agenda for further research and policy development in areas such as: development of synergies between academia and industry; formulation of management strategies to support the flexibility of firms to capture opportunities associated with by-product valorization; building a systemic approach at a local level to implement bio-based technology clusters.

Reform of energy prices in China has stepped into a crucial stage. It has become a controversial issue after the reform of increasing block tariffs (IBTs) for household electricity, followed by a time-of-use (TOU) pricing policy. Using ELES model, this paper estimates the price elasticity of residential electricity demand; based on perceived price and price elasticity, a power structure model demand response for nonlinear electricity price is proposed; taking Anhui province as a case, this paper analyzes the attainment situation of such policy objectives as electricity saving, consumer welfare, equity improvement and peak shaving, with the introduction of TOU pricing into IBTs for household electricity. The results show that IBTs helps reduce electricity consumption by 0.74%–0.93%, with minor energy effect；IBTs may lead to a maximum 1.57CNY increase of electricity expense per household per month, which is acceptable for residents. It also may reduce cross-subsidy to some extent. After introducing TOU pricing, the efficiency of peak shaving is only 2.25%–2.78%, and the load decrement at peak periods is far lower than the increase at valley periods; while the effect of electricity conservation and cross-subsidy reduction have been alleviated. In other words, peak-valley price is not only difficult to achieve its own objective effectively, but also prohibits the effect of IBTs. Based on the above conclusions, some policy recommendations are provided to improve the price reform of residential electricity, natural gas and other public resources in various regions of China and foreign regions with similar electricity market.

The paper systematically reviews the conditions of energy supply and demand in Taiwan and further investigates the energy issues it has been confronted with as well as its objective of energy policy adjustment. In view of the trend of supply-side reform in mainland China energy sector under the New Normal economy and the background of the “Belt and Road” initiative, the paper points out the significance and development prospects of cross-strait energy cooperation. Main contributions of this paper are: by forecasting the future trend of power demand growth in Taiwan, the power shortage in the future of Taiwan is analyzed. On this basis, the paper analyzes the existing contradictions between Taiwan's energy transition policy and its current problem of power shortage, and the feasibility as well as the significance of electricity transmission to Taiwan for the first time.

In the framework of pressing local and global environmental challenges it is essential to understand that cities are complex systems dependent on and linked to the rest of the world through global supply chains that embody an array of environmental flows. Cities are thus a complex articulation that intertwine local and global challenges which rely at their extended hinterland for their resource use and pollution emission. To assess the environmental sustainability of an urban area in a comprehensive manner, it is not only necessary to measure its local and direct environmental performance but also to understand and take into account its global and indirect environmental counterparts. This paper presents a comparative analysis of a territorial-based and a consumption-based approach to estimate both direct and embodied resource use and pollution flows for the case of Brussels Capital Region (Belgium). The territorial-based approach is based on local energy, water and material consumption measured data as well as measured data on waste generation and pollution emissions. The estimation of indirect resource use and pollution emissions (or consumption-based approach) is based on the regional IO-tables of the city-region of Brussels extended with multi-region input-output tables, taking into account the global flows of consumption. The comparison of these two approaches is particularly relevant in the case of cities that have limited productive activities and limited or no extraction of materials as the impact on the hinterland is often underestimated or neglected by local (environmental) policies which are only based on territorial-based figures. The results show that the indirect primary energy use, GHG emissions and material use estimated by the consumption-based approach is more than three times higher than local measures indicate. The embodied water use, estimated via IOA, was over 40 times higher than the local water consumption. These results show that territorial-based approach using local data underestimate the resource needs and pollution emissions of a city and can therefore be insufficient or even be misguiding. By mapping the origin of embodied flows it is in fact possible to illustrate the open character of an urban economy and its dependence on the global hinterland. Finally, this paper discusses the possibility and relevance to combine these two approaches to create a hybrid framework that measures the full environmental performance of cities both accurately and comprehensively.

China is under the pressure of international climate change negotiation, domestic energy security and haze reduction. Replying to these pressures positively, China announced to reduce 40%–45% CO2 per unit Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2020, 60%–65% CO2 per unit GDP in 2030 based on 2005 level, and to carry out ambitious reduction measures. To achieve this target, low-carbon governance is necessary. The central government expects to build low-carbon society and develop low-carbon economy through pilots. This paper analyzes the framework of low-carbon governance in China. The government plays a guidance role in the governance process which involves enterprises, NGOs and citizens. Different types of measures, policy tools and actions have been implemented as response to the pressure. The governance can be achieved through the integration of technical, spatial and social pathways. The paper analyzes the framework by using Suzhou Industry Park (SIP) as case study which is a very important part of low carbon management of cities. Although the total CO2 amount in the Park has increased, its CO2 intensity per unit GDP has been reduced in recent years after the efforts made by its Park Council and enterprisers. The policy implementation indicates that the guidance role of local governments and the process are still based on a top-down management at park level, although the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) hopes to carry out pilot program and summarize experiences from a bottom-up mechanism. Target Responsibility System (TRS) is still the key working mechanism and makes contribution to the reduction of CO2 per unit GDP. The low-carbon governance experiences of SIP can be learned by other cities, while local government displays positive attitudes towards low-carbon practices.

This paper reviews the literature on smart cities. Offering a critical synthesis of the material, it advances a Triple Helix inspired account of smart cities as future internet-based developments. In particular, as future internet-based developments covering the digital infrastructures, data management systems, renewable energies and cloud computing of a regional innovation in the Internet of Things (IoT). More specifically, as a regional innovation in the IoT that covers the morphology of urban extensions, infill and mass retrofits, which smart cities call for the development of. Focusing on the metrics of mass retrofit proposals, the paper also serves to demonstrate how the urban morphology of such regional innovations matter in the sense they tell us that being aware of the considerable energy savings and CO 2 reductions, which IoTs offer cities to be smart, is not enough. Not enough, because without knowing whether the costs and benefits under-gridding the sustainability of city-districts are shared equally, it is impossible to say if the 65% energy saving and 78% reduction in CO 2 , attributed to the data collection, information processing and smart (micro) grids of mass retrofits is socially just. The paper suggests that in order to verify this, it is necessary for smart cities to first baseline the social-demographic structure of retrofit proposals. Then draw upon the environmental profile this evaluation generates to assess whether the regional innovation creates the wealth needed to under-grid the sustainability of city-districts. Under-grid the sustainability of city-districts as the energy efficient-low carbon zones of an inclusive growth strategy seen to be socially just. Seen to be socially just, because the costs and benefits underlying the 1.5 ha ecological footprint that surfaces from this regional innovation are equally appropriated as the proceeds of a wealth creation, which contributes to the resilience of city-districts as energy efficient-low carbon zones. As energy efficient-low carbon zones, whose inclusive growth strategy also emerges as a post-carbon economy claiming to be climate neutral.

Ecological sustainability of the Chinese economy is vital for China as well as for the world. By integrating environmental input-output analysis, emergy theory, and a complex network model into one framework, this paper explores Chinese sectoral ecological sustainability with the most recent 2012 input-output table. The results show that there are significant differences in emergy intensities among sectors. The non-metal mining sector is the most emergy-intensive sector at 6.06E+17 sej/10000 Yuan, followed by the metal mining sector. Additionally, output connections have a positive impact on the emergy yield ratio, input connections exert a negative impact on the emergy yield ratio, and PageRank centrality has a positive effect on the environmental loading ratio. This paper updates the Chinese sectoral emergy assessment, identifies key sectors in the Chinese ecological network, and analyzes the impact of network indicators on sectoral emergy performance. These analyses will be useful in updating the guide for adjusting industrial structure in China.

This paper analyzes the effects of recycling and product quality level on pricing decision in a two-echelon closed-loop supply chain (CLSC), where demand is sensitive with price and quality level of the product. Under Stackelberg game setting, this paper considers three possible collection activities of used product for recycling, viz, retailer led collection, manufacturer led collection and third party led collection. It is found that third party's involvement in used product collection activity is always disadvantageous. In this proposed model, cost parameters of the reverse channel play an important role in determining best channel structure. Quality level and price of the product directly vary with recycling. A threshold of collection effort determines which party between manufacturer and retailer can provide the best quality product at least price. To resolve channel conflict and to distribute surplus profit, the concepts of sub-game perfect equilibrium and alternative offer bargaining strategy are used. The analysis reveals that the subgame perfect equilibrium retail price cuts out channel conflict and depicts particular profit split irrespective of the offering party. The proposed model is also justified by illustrating numerical examples.

Under the policy of energy saving and emission reduction, technological innovation has become the key power-driver to improve energy utilization efficiency. By using the panel data of 21 industrial segments between 2000 and 2015, this paper investigates the driving effect of technological innovation on energy-utilization efficiency in strategic emerging industries and analyzes the critical factors influencing the driving effect of technological innovation by the stochastic frontier analysis method. The empirical result shows that technological innovation between 2000 and 2015 has had a significant positive driving effect on the energy utilization efficiency of strategic emerging industries and exhibits a development trend of year-by-year steady-state growth on the whole. The greater the value of the development expenditure of new green products and the investment in environmental pollution treatment, the greater the technological efficiency; the greater the value of the transformation expenditure of energy-saving technology, the greater the technological inefficiency. Finally, the paper proposes the countermeasures and suggestions for the driving effect of technological innovation on energy utilization efficiency in strategic emerging industries. An empirical study is made to analyze the driving effect of technological innovation on energy utilization efficiency, the positive and negative factors of technological innovation are forgotten. Strategic emerging industries can select optimal innovation behavior to improve quality and efficiency of energy utilization based on the results.

Taking into account the attributes of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade and the space-time characteristics of trade flows, this paper identifies the multiple dimensional factors that influenced the global LNG trade between 2004 and 2015. Following an analysis of the data via the application of gravity models, the empirical results of this study indicate that these influencing factors possess both general and regional characteristics. In contrast to general trade, the LNG trade is mainly affected by the economic magnitude of the demand side. Regionally, pipeline natural gas has a significant substitute effect on the LNG trade within the global model, though not within the Asian model. Additionally, the LNG trade in Asia is more sensitive to the influence of import prices and research and development investment than in the global model. Our subsample analyses show that the results are robustness across different periods. Finally, this paper discusses pertinent policy implications for the LNG trade, especially as related to Asia.

The grand challenge of accessing fresh water and sanitation is a global concern. The intensity of challenge depends on the geographical location as well as the level of socio-economic development of individual countries. The present paper first reviews the key water-related global trends and examines the global agenda on water issues. Next the focus is turned on Russia. Despite of being one of the water-rich countries in the world, Russia faces a number of substantial administrative and structural issues in the water sector. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a long-term strategy for the management of this infinite, but strategic resource. The present paper develops long-term scenarios and strategies for the Russian water sector towards the year 2030. The study draws upon an earlier horizon scanning activity that identified a set of global trends and uncertainties related to water sector. This horizon scanning work is extended into alternative futures for the Russian water sector by using a combination of Foresight methods including scenario analysis, data mining, and various expert methods. Scenarios developed are characterized by a set of qualitative and quantitative factors and indicators of future developments in three key domains for the water sector: (i) the sustainability of water systems; (ii) water use by households and industry; and (iii) new water products and services. Scenarios present four alternative trajectories for the water sector that may also be applied for certain countries whose water sector is comparable with the Russia. Among the scenarios developed in the study, it is concluded that the most probable ones are Problem conservation and Losses and accidents . However, there is a possibility to revert these scenarios into more desirable trajectories, which are presented in other scenarios. For instance, a variety of new clean water technologies may be widely applied to achieve the Nearly perfect future (visionary) scenario.

Among the regulatory policies, feed-in tariffs (FIT) and renewable portfolio standards (RPS) are the most popular to promote the development of renewable energy power industry. This paper uses system dynamics (SD) to establish models of long-term development of the renewable energy power industry under FIT and RPS schemes, and provides a case study of China's wind power industry by using scenario analysis method. The model, on the one hand, not only clearly shows the complex logical relationship between the factors but also reveals the process of coordination between the two policy tools in the development of the renewable energy power industry. On the other hand, it provides a reference for scholars to study similar problems in different countries, thereby facilitating an understanding of the renewable energy power's long-term sustainable development pattern under FIT and RPS schemes, and helping to provide references for policy-making institutions. The results show that the integrate implementation of FIT and RPS can promote long-term and rapid development of China's wind power industry given the constraints and actions of the mechanisms of RPS quota proportion, the tradable green certificates (TGC) valid period, and fines. In addition, in the period of the construction of the TGC market, RPS quota growth rate and fine have a no significant effect on industrial development, however, with TGC market game becoming more and more fierce, both of them have a significant positive impact on the long-term development of the industry. TGC valid period has little effect on industrial development in our study. At the end of the paper, policy implications are offered as references for the government.

The allocation of carbon emission quotas is recognized as a fundamental and critical step towards the establishment of an effective nationwide carbon emissions trading (CET) market in China. This paper aims to examine the quota allocation pertaining to China's east coastal areas. These regions are pioneers in reformation and the domestic heavy emitters. In this paper, a multi-criteria decision analysis model is proposed. This model is based on the principles of efficiency and equity. In order to reflect the true efficiency of carbon emissions, a weighted Russell direction distance model is employed. Three criteria, namely capacity, responsibility and potential, are used to evaluate the degrees of equity. Furthermore, different situations are set to evaluate the related indicators. The results indicate the following: (1) Industrial provinces have less carbon emission quota increments. (2) The Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone has notably improved energy efficiency, and future quota increments correspond with the zone's current carbon emissions. (3) Circum-Bohai Sea Economic Zone will be a major buyer of carbon emission quotas, while Pan-Pearl River Delta Economic Zone currently receives surplus quota. (4) The overall allocation of quotas converts from uneven to even as a result of GDP growth. These results provide a reference for collaborative regional reductions in carbon emissions and for the construction of a CET market.

Despite regulatory measures restricting industrial and agricultural operations from pouring pollutants into lakes, streams, and rivers, around 1.1 trillion m3 of wastewater were still disposed in waterways around the world in 2009 and this amount continues to grow. Several studies have analyzed the determinants of gray water increase at local level, but so far none has explored them in an international context to highlight the role of global value added chains and the dichotomy between developed and developing nations. In order to provide insights on the dynamics of water pollution worldwide, this paper analyzes the main drivers of gray water discharge during the 1995–2009 period and the effort on reducing gray water compared to other environmental externalities. Based on the World Input-Output Database, a structural decomposition analysis (SDA) of gray water generation shows that domestic demand for food is the main driver of gray water changes in all countries, while relocation of industrial activities to developing nations has disproportionally transferred this burden from developed countries' manufacturing industries. We highlight that while national policies should target water pollution from the agri-food sector within each country, water discharges from manufacturing sectors in global value chains need to be regulated from an international perspective. Besides the empirical evidence on water pollution drivers currently lacking in the environmental literature, this paper also introduces a novel hybrid multiplicative-additive SDA that overcomes the issue of distributing large interaction terms in standard additive models and allows simulating mitigation scenarios. It portrays the heterogeneity among sectors of how environmental abatement policies affect water and air pollution.

The transport sector accounts for a large proportion of energy demand and environmental emissions and is growing rapidly. The city is the hub of modern human life and the urban transport sector is developing fast. Specifically, in the Internet era, the development of public transport has brought new challenges and opportunities to urban passenger transport. Thus, research on the energy demand and environmental emissions of the urban transport sector is significant and timely. This paper takes Beijing’s public transport as an example and applies the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP) model to analyze the energy demand and the main greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under different scenarios during the period 2016–2030. The results show that: 1) if the government fails to guide the development of passenger transport appropriately, its energy demand and GHG emissions will rise rapidly and under the baseline scenario, the energy demand and emissions in 2030 are about 1.8 times those oft 2015; 2) the scenarios of developing public transport and transport sharing have a significant effect of energy saving and emission reduction and in 2030 the energy demand and GHG emissions falls by 25%–30% compared with that of the baseline scenario, so the combination of public transport and transport sharing is a wise choice for the low carbon development of the passenger transport sector in Beijing; 3) scenarios of easing road congestion and new-energy and clean-energy vehicle development have huge potential for energy saving and emission reduction, particularly the internal adjustment of the energy structure in the scenario of developing new-energy and clean-energy vehicles, which can greatly reduce the demand for traditional energy sources and reduce GHG emissions. This paper illustrates the development trends of energy demand and GHG emissions in Beijing’s passenger transport sector under the scenarios of transport sharing development and traditional development in the Internet era, providing a basis for decision making.

Electricity consumption in cities is steadily increasing. Using a life cycle approach and fuel mix data from power companies’ sustainability reports, this paper analyzes greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electricity consumption in Hong Kong. The results show that coal contributed on an average 74.3 percent, liquefied natural gas 25.1 percent, and oil 0.6 percent of the thermal energy consumed for generating electricity in Hong Kong between 2002 and 2015. Besides, Hong Kong imported an average of 7.96 billion kWh per year net electricity from a nuclear power plant in Shenzhen. During this period, GHG emissions from annual electricity consumption ranged between 27.0 and 34.1 million tons (MT) and the emission factor ranged between 702 and 792 g CO2-eq/kWh. Hong Kong’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased steadily from USD 176 billion in 2002 to USD 297 billion by 2015. As a result, Hong Kong’s electricity productivity increased from 4.62 to 6.75 USD/kWh while GHG emission from electricity consumption per GDP decreased from 0.153 to 0.104 MT CO2-eq/USD billion. Hong Kong’s annual electricity consumption was predicted over the short-term period (2016–2020) and medium term (up to year 2030). Electricity consumption is likely to increase to 44.63 billion kWh by 2030 while GHG emissions from electricity consumption would increase to 33.92 MT of CO2-eq. The implications are discussed at the end of the paper.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the main determinants of the economic acceptability of four Green Technologies (GTs): alternative fuel vehicles, energy savings in residential buildings, smart meters and renewable electricity, using a meta-analysis on a sample of 35 selected papers, which provided 245 primary data. This approach allows detecting relationships across heterogeneous studies, avoiding the subjectivity of qualitative surveys. We implement a new two-step procedure. First, we compute a measure of the implicit price for a kilogram of CO2 avoided (PCO2), homogenizing the usable information for the GTs considered. Second, we conduct a meta-regression using the computed PCO2 values to estimate the socio-economic determinants' impact. In general, our results show a wide degree of acceptability for GTs which is stronger among European citizens. In particular, it emerges that, on average, the estimated PCO2 is positive for the GTs considered, and additional positive effects exist when respondents are confronted with an explicit reference to quantitative targets in terms of CO2 abatement, a clear proposal for payment timing, and a specific renewable electricity mix. These results indicate that information and transparency are crucial to spur GTs deployment. Therefore, to support GTs’ market penetration, public and private institutional stakeholders, have to provide “ad hoc” information to the end users, setting a clear and suitable system of prices to increase the economic value end users place on GTs.

The purpose is to analyse and explain factors determining whether conventional trade with stores or e-commerce with home delivery is more energy-efficient. The findings from previous studies are compared in order to identify more general patterns of energy consumption, describe which energy consumption factors (product waste and product returns, buildings, packaging, passenger transport and freight transport) are considered and what assumptions are made. In this comparison, we analyse product characteristics and product classes, discuss the energy factors with the greatest impact and the contextual impact of each factor on the energy consumption. The paper is based on a structured literature review and a content analysis, which helped us to synthesise current knowledge and explain consistent and inconsistent findings across individual studies of energy consumption in conventional sales channels versus e-commerce channels. Our literature search identified 11 studies, with 16 cases, that compared the energy efficiency. The results show the following: 1) The net effect of energy consumption was in the majority of the cases positive for the e-commerce channel, 2) The proportion of unsold products and product returns seem to have a major impact on the energy efficiency of different sales channels, 3) Buildings had only a minor effect on the energy consumption difference. It was slightly lower in the home delivery systems, 4) Packaging contributed considerably to the energy consumption difference for some products. The e-commerce channel consumed generally more energy from packaging, but indirect effects (e.g. volume efficiency) were not considered, and 5) The total energy consumption from transportation was greater in the conventional supply chains, as the additional energy in passenger transport generally outweighed the increased energy in freight transport in e-commerce. The paper points out directions for future research and discusses implications for research, policy-making and practice.

The commercial sector is one of the key sectors in China’s economic transformation and carbon emissions control. This paper applies VAR and STIRPAT models to investigate the major influencing factors of CO2 emissions in China’s commercial sector over the period 1980–2014. According to the empirical results, per capita GDP, urbanization and energy structure have positive effects on CO2 emissions while energy intensity has negative effect on CO2 emissions in the long term. Besides, per capita GDP ranks as the most important driving factors of CO2 in China’s commercial sector, followed by urbanization, energy structure and energy intensity in that order. This paper argues that reducing energy intensity and improving energy structure are the means to realize CO2 emission reductions in the commercial sector in the short and long term, respectively. Besides, this paper forecasts that CO2 emissions in China’s commercial sector will be 1942 Mt by 2030, which is huge and about half of the CO2 emissions of the European Union in 2014. The findings have important implications for policy-makers to enact CO2 emission reduction policies.

A carbon reduction labelling scheme is an effective policy tool for motivating enterprises or organizations to reduce their life-cycle-based carbon emissions to benefit the environment. This paper uses system dynamics to model enterprises' compliance with a combined government policy instrument for a carbon reduction labelling scheme, that is, government subsidies and economic sanctions. A case study of paper enterprises in China is provided to demonstrate the application of the proposed model in which two optional technological plans to reduce the enterprises' carbon emissions are examined. The technological plans are categorized as a low-cost and high-cost plan. The simulation results show that both the technological plans are vulnerable to the combined policy making, and the high-cost plan shows superior environmental performance for carbon emissions reduction. However, the enterprises are more inclined to choose the low-cost plan because of superior economic performance. The study offers insights to help enterprises select optimal actions on carbon emissions reduction and to inform government of possible sustainable policy design to promote low-carbon development. The model limitations are discussed as a basis for further improvements in low-carbon development.

Whether industrial agglomeration can promote an increase in energy efficiency is of great importance to not only China’s energy conservation and emissions reduction plans, but also China’s future sustainable development. This paper uses statistical data from 285 cities, from 2004 to 2013, to analyze the effect of industrial agglomeration on energy efficiency. The spatial autocorrelation tests show that there is significant spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity in urban energy efficiency. Although dynamic spatial econometric results show that industrial agglomeration can promote an increase in energy efficiency from a country level, there are significant differences at a regional level. In the east, the effect of industrial agglomeration on energy efficiency has a threshold effect, but in central and western areas, industrial agglomeration can promote the increase of energy efficiency, with the positive effect in western areas greater than that in central areas. Finally, based on the research, this paper puts forward concrete suggestions to enhance energy efficiency.

The paper explores the nexus between greenhouse gas, financial development, energy consumption, trade and urbanization in 34 upper middle income countries from Asia, Europe, Africa and America (South and North) by using panel data from 2001 to 2014. Vector error correction model explored different results for different regions such as the causality of greenhouse gas for Europe and America; financial development for Asia; trade openness for Asia, Europe and America; and urbanization for Africa and America. The causality of greenhouse gas emission was bi-directional with urbanization in America and trade in Europe. The bi-directional causality of trade was observed with financial development in Asia and urbanization in Africa. The generalized method of moment and fully modified ordinary least square explored a direct association of per capita greenhouse gas emission with financial development in Europe; energy consumption in all panels, and renewable energy in Africa and America. But, the relationship of per capita emission was reciprocal with financial development in Asia, Africa and America; renewable energy in Europe; trade in Europe, Africa and America; and urbanization in Asia, Europe and America. The relationship of variables changes from region to region and country to country. A country-based reciprocal effect on per capita greenhouse gas was observed for financial development, renewable energy, trade openness and urbanization for different countries. This paper provides an insight to policy makers to re-structure the financial system, energy usage pattern, trade and urbanization in accordance with the cleaning of environment at country and regional level.

Residential sector has been one key sector for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions due to its significant contribution to global warming. Researchers in different countries have studied household energy consumption patterns and greenhouse gas emissions in order to promote low-carbon lifestyles. However, few review papers have been published in this regard, leading to a lack of systematic understanding on the related research achievements. Hence, by using a bibliometric approach, this paper aims to review the existing literature and examine the evolution of such a field so that the research trends can be uncovered, including popular research methods. Citation analysis is performed to assess the influence of most productive journals, countries/territories, and authors. Network analysis is also conducted to evaluate the relationship among different countries/territories, authors, and keywords. Research outcomes of this paper present a comprehensive research picture on residential energy consumption and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions (REE) related papers published from 1997 to 2016. The most productive journals, countries/territories, authors are also analyzed based on citation analysis and network analysis. In addition, results also revealed that behavioral analysis, input-output analysis, life cycle assessment, and cost-benefit analysis are the most commonly used methods in this field. Results obtained from this study can provide valuable information for researchers interested in the REE-related field.

The accurate calculation of CO2 emissions in every province in China is the basis for developing regional energy policies. There is a huge fossil-fuel reserve and production capacity in western China, whereas their underdeveloped social and economic status means that there is lower demand. The more developed eastern coastal regions of China show dynamic economic momentum and, hence, higher energy demand. Based on the carbon emission flows in network theory, this paper proposes an approach to recalculate provincial CO2 emissions from the perspective of secondary energy consumption. This approach attributes CO2 emissions to final energy consumers after considering cross-provincial secondary energy trading, especially cross-provincial electric power trading in the regional power grid. Given the uneven distribution of energy resources and the imbalance of energy consumption among regions, cross-provincial secondary energy trading in China is significant, especially in the power industry. By adopting the approach proposed in this paper, the provincial carbon intensity and the corresponding energy policy can be modified to make energy end users pay rather than the primary producer.

Sustained increase in Chinese household income has exerted positive impact on the consumption of goods and services. This paper aims to analyze the unequal impacts of household consumption across different income households on the whole CO2 emissions, by utilizing a semi-closed input-output model and hypothetical extraction method. The semi-closed input-output model moves household consumption activities into the intermediate use along with dividing urban and rural households to several groups by their income levels, and the hypothetical extraction method (HEM) is used to estimate the reductions of CO2 emissions relative to total emissions after extracting the consumption of each household group. The results show that: (1) the impact on CO2 emissions generated by urban households’ consumption are 1.8 times as much as that of rural ones; (2) excluding consumption of higher-income households from the economy would cause greater CO2 emission reductions than lower ones. Specifically, urban highest-income households have the most relative reductions of CO2 emissions, which are −12.2% in 2007 and -13.8% in 2012, while for rural highest-income households are −5.1% in 2007 and -5.1% in 2012. And urban and rural highest-income households are respectively 3.8 and 1.8 times on the relative reductions of the lowest-income ones; (3) the relative reductions of household CO2 emissions from food sectors is the most, while from residence sectors is the least. Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forward consumption-based policy implications.

This paper examines the relationships between environmental regulations, firms’ innovation and private sustainability benefits using nine case studies of UK and Chinese firms. It aims to unravel the mechanisms by which a firm’s environmental behaviour in improving its private benefits of sustainability is influenced by its relationship with the government, which primarily enacts regulations to maximise public sustainability benefits in the interests of society as a whole. The paper takes its cue from the Porter hypothesis to make some broad preliminary assumptions to inform the research design. A conceptual framework was developed through inductive case studies using template analysis. The results show that depending on firms’ resources and capabilities, those that adopt a more dynamic approach to respond to environmental regulations innovatively and take a proactive approach to manage their environmental performance are generally better able to reap the private benefits of sustainability. Part of the research for this paper was supported by funding from Nottingham Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre and the University of Bedfordshire Business and Management Research Institute.

Resource efficiency and sustainable resource management is critical to transitional economies to forward their pathway to sustainable development. To date, material flows analysis (MFA) and its database has become mature tools to diagnose the national resource utilization and efficiency, but still, few attentions and systematical analysis have been done for developing countries. With this circumstance, this paper conducted an innovative try on the in-depth MFA research on Philippines and its comparison in the Asian context, as an added value to current global MFA studies. Firstly, Philippine material flows from 1980 to 2008 and designed indicators reflecting resource utilization intensity and efficiency were analyzed and compared with other typical Asian economies. Dematerialization analysis based on modified Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) was further applied, so as to investigate the coupling statements and trends of resource consumption and economic growth in Philippines and compared with other Asian countries. Finally, driving forces for the changes of material flows were investigated with decomposition approach based on IPAT (Impacts = Population × Amenity × Technology) in periods divided according to key domestic development stages. Results highlighted a fluctuation of material flows, which in line with the unstable development (1980s to early 2000s) periods in Philippines. While in its stable development (after early 2000s), the EKC-like curve was revealed, indicating increasing resource consumption stage and requirement on strengthening resource efficiency countermeasures. IPAT analysis highlighted the critical role of economic instability on the fluctuation of DMC in the periods of 1980–1986, 1986–1996 and 1996–2002. While in the period of 2002–2008, with economy recovery and stable development, DMC increased and significantly offset by resource efficiency enhancement (DMC/GDP). In Asian context, compared with mature developed countries like Japan, Philippines didn’t reach the real dematerialization stage yet. While with comparison to fast developing countries like China and Malaysia, Philippines was by far achieving the material prosperity together with economic prosperity. Therefore, with setting stable economic as priority, to enhance resource efficiency measures like cleaner production and regional eco-industrial development, market measures on resource price and tax, as well as decision support tool development are critical to Philippines’ future sustainable resource management. With above highlights, this paper expects to provide critical insights to the ever-improvement of Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries’ resource efficiency and resource management.

The future of the Carbon Market Approach under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is uncertain. However, further development of Carbon Markets is expected. This paper estimates the average carbon price of the carbon emission permits (COP-approved units) acquired by the Spanish government and also a more realistic figure for the average carbon cost of the aforesaid emission permits. This is very useful for evaluating and comparing different carbon prices and markets. In addition, the paper contributes to the existing literature by providing a deeper understanding of the flow of emission permits between the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) under the Kyoto Protocol. The main conclusions are that the estimated carbon price and cost are both lower than other reported prices and costs. This may go some way towards explaining why the government preferred to use the Flexibility Mechanisms and acquire an especially large number of COP-approved units (mainly Assigned Amount Units (AAUs)) through bilateral transactions with other Annex B countries, instead of launching actual greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement projects in the country. Moreover, more transparency is needed in regard to bilateral transactions of AAUs between the Spanish government and other Annex B seller countries.

Risk ranking is a widely used technique for selecting and prioritizing multiple risks facing an organization or decision maker. In industrial practice and in academic work, risk ranking methods are commonly based an implicit risk conceptualization, adopting a particular foundational perspective and accounting for selected factors. Nevertheless, different stakeholders may adhere to various risk conceptualizations, applying different foundational perspectives and accounting for different factors in the ranking process. Identifying a gap in the literature to coherently consider these different foundations, this paper presents an approach for reconciling different foundational perspectives and stakeholder views, accounting for uncertainties about these. The approach is presented based on three foundational perspectives (the expected value, uncertainty and moral perspective), and developed as a Bayesian Network – Influence Diagram. The main use of the model is to make possible controversies in risk prioritization explicit, facilitating stakeholder deliberation. The model can easily be extended with new perspectives on risk ranking, or adapted based on additional knowledge about other aspects, e.g. relating to risk perception. The graphical representation allows insights into the contribution of various aspects, facilitating the selection of appropriate risk management actions. The developed model is applied to an example, suggesting that the envisaged benefits of the proposed approach are plausible. It is concluded that the novel approach has a clear potential for reconciling different foundational perspectives and stakeholder views on risk ranking. Nevertheless, it is stressed that the conceptual contribution made in this paper should be more elaborately tested in practical settings, substantiating the findings further.

Given that a fixed national emission reduction target could be achieved by imposing emission quotas among multiple decision-making units under administration, a novel nonlinear programming approach is proposed in this paper to obtain an optimal emission quota allocation in a least-cost way. Marginal emission abatement cost curves are simulated based on the environmental performance and marginal emission abatement costs measured in a set of parametric directional output distance functions with multi-inputs and multi-outputs. Further, the proposed model is applied to empirically investigate the optimal carbon emission quota allocation for China’s building construction industry among thirty-three provinces in three different regions. The results indicate that the relatively developed eastern region in China has higher marginal emission abatement cost and can be imposed with more emission quotas, while the central and western regions can undertake more emission reduction. Approximately 74 million RMB can be saved by implementing the optimal emission allocation (proposed in this paper) as compared to a uniform emission quota allocation. The findings are of great theoretical, methodological, and practical significance for policymakers and social science researchers in terms of climate change mitigation.

The late 1990s and early 2010s witnessed China’s efforts to reform its coal industry towards sustainability. A series of rigorous initiatives were launched to consolidate its coal resources and upgrade its mining sector. The “mine closure and production reduction campaign” (MCPRC) and “coal resources consolidation campaign” (CRCC) were among the notable. This paper conducts a general review of the policies and regulations relating to these initiatives with Shanxi, one of the key coal-producing provinces and one of the pilot areas for reform, as a case study. The paper argues that the “one-size-fits-all” approach may have brought short-lived political and economic benefits. However, in the long run, a rationally-designed, stable, socio-economically and environmentally co-ordinated regulatory framework for both large and small coal mines is needed for the sustainable development of China’s coal sector. This finding would be helpful for the potential similar reform initiatives for the coal sector and for the wider energy sector across the country.

This paper analysed CO 2 emission pathways for the Japanese iron and steel industry towards 2030, taking into account the likely development of process capacities that could flexibly adapt to a range of projected future crude steel production levels (“optimal capacities”) while maintaining minimum capacity utilisation rates. Coke and pig iron production capacities were optimised to the levels that enable flexible operation for 90–120 Mt-crude steel/y, compared to 110 Mt/y in 2010. Operational constraints were applied to the capacity utilisation rates (minimum of 85%) and the maximum use of coke and pig iron substitutes. This paper also assessed the implications of the aforementioned flexible operation across a range of crude steel production levels on the future scrap balances. This study calculated the optimal capacities for coke ovens and blast furnaces in 2030 to be 29 Mt-coke/y (compared to 43 Mt/y in 2010) and 83 Mt-pig iron/y (compared to 90 Mt/y in 2010). Under these optimal capacities and the aforementioned range for crude steel production levels, the projected total CO 2 emissions were 4–21% below 2010 levels. If the 2030 production level remains at 105 Mt/y, which equals the 2015 production level and the 1973–2015 average, the total emissions will be 9–16% below 2010 levels, depending on the level of emissions reduction effort. These results indicate that the industry is likely to considerably overachieve its voluntary emissions reduction target for 2030 (0.1% below 2010 levels). Moreover, it was found that the lifetime extensions for existing blast furnaces and coke ovens have limited impact on CO 2 emissions while significantly reducing the investment needs. The study also showed that the low crude steel production (90 Mt/y) combined with high pig iron and coke consumption levels to maintain minimum capacity utilisation rates may lead not only to an increase in specific CO 2 emissions per tonne of crude steel but also to a net export of obsolete scrap up to 17 Mt, which is nearly twice the historical high. Towards 2030, Japan would need to consider not only opportunities to maximize the use of steel scrap but also the development of an extended steel scrap trade infrastructure.

The cement sector is highly intensive in CO2 emissions and is the second biggest industrial sector in terms of emissions after the electricity generation sector. It emits CO2 from the combustion of fossil fuels, the calcination process and, indirectly, from electricity consumption. The ambitious climate change policy in the EU means that carbon prices and fuel prices are two very important sources of uncertainty that may affect the competitiveness of the sector. This paper focuses on understanding the risk associated with the future price of European Union Emission Trading System allowances. This is done by modelling a stochastic process with parameters calculated using market prices. Risks are valued with the Expected Shortfall and Value at Risk measures over the lifetime of a plant using MonteCarlo simulation: two well-known risk measures in financial economics. Risks are greater and returns lower in the wet process than in the dry one. The paper includes a sensitivity analysis of the effects arising from changes in the prices of allowances as a consequence of a hypothetical drastic change in climate policy, including jumps, withdrawing of free emission allowances and changes in future carbon prices. In this case impacts will also be higher in the wet process. Finally, the paper illustrates the optimal conditions for retrofitting a wet cement plant to convert it to a dry cement plant under uncertainty of the price of carbon allowances. This is done using Real Options Analysis. The trigger price is €114 million for a plant with remaining lifetime of 25 years and a production of one million tonnes.

Low-carbon development patterns have gradually attracted more attention because of strong shocks to society and the economy from environmental problems. Developing a low-carbon economy is essential for every country to improve sustainable economic development, and doing so is at the forefront of low-carbon research. Policy and government intervention play a key role in the development of a low-carbon economy. Using game-based learning theory for reference, this paper builds an evolutionary model of low-carbon strategies based on the game between the government and enterprises in the context of a complex network. It then studies the effects of government incentives on enterprises regarding the diffusion of low-carbon policies and how enterprises compete and transform in the Newman-Watts small-world network. We introduce government policy encouragement as a factor in the decision-making process of companies' adoption of a low-carbon strategy, thus enriching the literature on the diffusion of low-carbon strategies. The model proposed in this paper can be used as a tool to evaluate the diffusion and application of low-carbon strategies among companies. The findings suggest that enterprises’ expectation of government incentives including subsidy and regulation determines whether low-carbon strategies can be diffused, and the diffusion speed. The more quick enterprises adjust their expectations in the government–enterprise game, the more enterprises will learn and follow to adopt effective low-carbon strategy. When enterprises attach great importance to the expected earnings from government incentives, the less effective low-carbon strategy adopted initially can be replaced by another more effective one.

Theoretical studies of pollution haven hypothesis predict that differentiated environmental regulation policies will result in inter-country relocation of polluting industries. This paper investigates pollution haven hypothesis at domestic level in China. Using panel data of 30 provincial level regions for the period 2004 to 2013, this paper empirically examines to what extent multiple environmental policies affect intra-country relocation of polluting industries in China. It is found that the implementation of both economic policy instrument like pollution discharge fee and public participation like letter complaints on environmental problems encourages industrial relocation, whereas the implementation of environmental legal policy instrument like laws, regulations and rules prevents polluting industries from relocating to other regions. It is also found that the relocation effect of environmental policies varies with industrial characteristics. Compared with water pollution-intensive industry, air pollution-intensive industry dominated by stated-owned capitals are insensitive to legal policy instruments. These findings suggest that the validity of pollution haven hypothesis is jointly associated with the type of environmental policy as well as industrial characteristics.

With the increasing conflicts among economic growth, environmental deterioration, and resource shortage, as an effective way to achieve the sustainable development and circular economy, the eco-industrial park gradually becomes a critical research issue in the field of recycling economy. In this paper, a hybrid framework for evaluating the comprehensive benefit of eco-industrial parks from the perspective of circular economy was proposed. Firstly, the evaluation index system for eco-industrial parks was constructed by employing the grey-Delphi method according to the opinions provided by experts from relevant fields, which includes economic benefit criteria, social benefit criteria, environmental benefit criteria, ecology industry construction criteria, and management level criteria, consisting of seventeen quantitative sub-criteria and nine qualitative sub-criteria. Secondly, in order to solve complicated, uncertain and ambiguous problems under the fuzzy background, a hybrid multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach was put forward on the basis of superiority linguistic ratings and entropy weight method for weight determination as well as fuzzy-VIKOR for ranking alternatives. Finally, the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed hybrid MCDM approach was demonstrated through a case analysis of six representative eco-industrial parks in China, and the comprehensive benefits of six eco-industrial parks were prioritized effectively. The hybrid MCDM approach in this paper presents a great potential in evaluating and ranking the comprehensive benefits of eco-industrial parks through solving complex and ambiguous problems in a fuzzy environment and varying MCDM tools. The evaluation findings by employing the proposed MCDM approach can provide references for the construction and management of eco-industrial parks and relevant policy formulation.

With the advent of the era of big data, large-dimensional spatial panel data is gradually used to do empirical research in the macroeconomic field. This paper adopts a Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) approach to calculate regional energy efficiency based on the perspective of total-factor energy efficiency using statistical data of 30 administrative regions in China. On basis of spatial effects, the paper assesses the convergence of regional energy efficiency in China using large-dimensional spatial panel data model. Our results indicate that (1) There is significant spatial autocorrelation and clear spatial effects in China's regional energy efficiency. Thus, spatial effects should not be ignored when assessing the convergence of regional energy efficiency in China; (2) During the period from 2000 to 2014 China's regional energy efficiency not only exhibits absolute β -convergence but also exhibits conditional β -convergence, the convergence rate is higher than the rate of absolute convergence after controlling for the initial conditions of the level of economic development, foreign direct investment and government influence; (3) The convergence rate of China's regional energy efficiency from 2004 to 2014 is higher than the convergence rate for the period of 2000–2004, which indicates that industry transfer has contributed to improvement in the convergence of regional energy efficiency in China since 2004.

Agent-Based Models (ABMs) are becoming a widespread approach to model human-environment interactions. They belong to the class of individual-based modelling approaches, which allow a bottom-up representation of the system being modelled, eliciting its macro-level evolution while modelling the micro-level behavior of its individuals. This paper deals with the application of an ABM to simulate future crop patterns in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg under a pre-defined scenario. The simulated scenario deals with the introduction of a “green consciousness” component in farmers' decisions, substituting a purely rational approach based only on profit maximization. The results of the ABM are used to perform a life cycle assessment of Luxembourg's agricultural system. The paper first describes the difficulties and the challenges connected with building an ABM for agriculture and then shows the results of the selected case study. The results show that, from a lifecycle perspective, a “greenness” criterion aimed only at reducing greenhouse gases emissions reveals patently a sub-optimal choice and causes burden shifts to other impact categories. Finally the ABM-based (bottom-up) approach is compared with a top-down approach applied in a previous study by the same authors to model the same system. Assets and drawbacks of the two approaches are highlighted.

The development of China's forestry resources has never been more challenging due to serious problems such as shortage, inferiority and uneven distribution of forestry resources. Therefore, the study and evaluation of China's forestry resources has a great significance to improve efficiency and ensure the sustainable development of the forestry resource. Meanwhile, the vast territory, huge population and widespread forest landscape of China have led to the numerous indexes and the huge data. To perform the research and evaluation accurately, this paper utilized the big data theory to analyze the relevant data of China's forestry resources. This study collected the data from 31 inland provinces and municipalities of China from 2005 to 2013, after which we carefully examined economic, social and ecological factors to choose assessment indexes and processed data accordingly. Firstly, we performed a cross-sectional dataset analysis using the method of data envelopment analysis to investigate the forestry resources efficiency in 31 inland provinces and municipalities of China in years 2008, 2012 and 2013. Secondly, we analyzed time series data of the 31 inland provinces and municipalities from 2005 to 2013 using the Malmquist total factor productivity index method. Our results showed the dominant factor that restraining forestry resources efficiency for the 31 inland provinces and municipalities is the implemented technology. So we suggest increasing the investment in science and technology to improve the overall efficiency of forestry resources, along with improvement of operation and management by relevant administrative departments to improve technology utilization. The innovation of this paper lies in the dynamic process of analysis.

Fossil fuels will continue to be the most important energy source for electricity generation in most parts of the world for the next decades. Therefore emission abatement technologies in large combustion plants are an important measure to reduce the emission of pollutants and to lower the negative effects thereof for humans, animals and the environment. Investment decisions for emission reduction measures are, however, facing various kinds of risks and uncertainties, caused by political, technological, economic and legal influences. The consideration of these risks in early stage investment planning is often complex yet important for investors. This paper investigates the possibilities to consider risks and uncertainties in early stage investment and cost calculation methodologies of different complexity. The real options analysis is presented as well as less complex methods, such as Monte-Carlo or sensitivity analyses that lower the calculation effort. The application of a specifically developed risk portfolio is recommended before quantitatively investigating risks. This portfolio helps to identify the most critical risks and to focus on them, reducing again the calculation effort. The presented approach is not only of interest for investors, but also for policies, especially if data is scarce or uncertainties exist regarding specific plant parameters or cost and price components. The content of this paper is presented using the example of nitrogen oxide emission reduction measures. It is, however, possible, to transfer the results to other pollutants or technologies in a related context.

The Chinese government committed to controlling carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions and promoting development of non-fossil fuels. Thus, it becomes a top priority for the government to develop effective climate policies. Against such background, this paper develops a new multi-country computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with detailed energy disaggregation. This study evaluates the impact of single policy instrument (carbon tax) and combined policy mixes, in order to investigate driving factors affecting the policy performance. The main findings are as follows. Firstly, the driving factors can be classified into two types. The first type of factors affects cost-effectiveness significantly, while the second type generates considerable effect on emission performance. Secondly, cross-border externalities function as important barriers to the CO 2 emission reduction, since they imply extra competitiveness loss and result in considerable carbon leakage. Finally, this paper considers two integrated policy mixes, wherein carbon tax revenue is recycled to reduce capital tax or support clean energy subsidy. These policy mixes can improve both cost-effectiveness and emission performance, and thus perform better than carbon tax alone. In this way, carbon tax revenue can be used to improve the performance. Looking ahead, complicated policy mixes are preferred to improve the performance of China's carbon tax.