Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Assessment of eco-efficiency change considering energy and

environment: A study of China’s non-ferrous metals industry
Xing Chen , Boqiang Lin *
School of Management, China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy, Collaborative Innovation Center for Energy Economics and Energy Policy, Xiamen
University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, we comprehensively consider the environment and economic performance by employing
Received 23 November 2019 non-radial distance function to study the regional eco-efficiency of China’s Non-ferrous Metals Industry
Received in revised form (NMI) during 2000e2016, from the perspective of total-factor through Data Envelopment Analysis
18 June 2020
(DEA)-Malmquist analysis framework. The change of regional technology gap ratio and the source of
Accepted 20 July 2020
Available online 3 August 2020
regional eco-inefficiency is also explored. Moreover, this paper analyzes the evolution of regional eco-
efficiency and the main factors that contribute to changes in eco-efficiency. The results indicate that:
Handling editor. Bin Chen First, the eco-efficiency of China’s NMI has improved and has shown a certain degree of regional het-
erogeneity. Second, the main source of eco-inefficiency is management inefficiency in eastern China. The
Keywords: central, western and northeastern China all showed an increasing trend of technology gap inefficiency
Eco-efficiency and a declining trend of management inefficiency during the sample period. Third, eastern China is
China’S non-ferrous metals industry regarded as a technology leader. The improvement of eco-efficiency in the central and northeastern
Eco-inefficiency China is mainly due to the promotion of technological progress, while the western region relies on the
DEA
improvement of technical efficiency. The study suggests that strengthening scientific and technological
Malmquist
research, promoting inter-regional technical exchanges are particularly important for eco-efficiency
improvement and regional coordinated development in China’s NMI.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction and environment (Fei and Lin, 2016).

The development of industrialization has caused a large amount
of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (A.J. Li et al., 2017). CO2
emissions, as a major component of GHGs, are the main source of
global warming. Controlling and reducing GHG emissions is of vital
importance to the ecological environment and is an important issue
facing humankind (Zhou and Wang, 2016). The impacts of GHG
emissions on climate and ecosystem are multiscale and compre-
hensive, especially its negative impacts, such as extreme climate,
rising sea levels, and the extinction of some plants and animals. To
solve this dilemma, most countries, globally have concluded on
series of conventions in recent decades, such as the Kyoto Protocol,
the Paris Agreement and so on, to deal with climate change. The
signing of these international conventions is a powerful guarantee
to ensure eco-efficiency. Maintaining high eco-efficiency is to
ensure the balance and sustainability of the economy, resources,
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: bqlin@xmu.edu.cn, bqlin2004@vip.sina.com (B. Lin).
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has
defined eco-efficiency in detail.1 In short, higher eco-efficiency
means maximizing value by minimizing resource and environ-
mental costs2 (Arabi et al., 2014). Meanwhile, eco-efficiency mea-
sure is considered as a tool to provide decision-makers with
reliable information for sustainable development assessments
(Camarero et al., 2013). In this paper, we take China’s Non-ferrous
Metal Industry (NMI) as the research object to study the change
of eco-efficiency and incorporate GHG (CO2) emissions as unde-
sirable output into the model.
As an important raw material for industrial development, non-
ferrous metals have a wide range of applications and a high
1
https://www.wbcsd.org/.
2
Maximizing value refers to maximizing the value of products and services
produced by enterprises or provided by economies. Minimizing resources and
environmental costs refers to minimizing the resources and energy consumption of
enterprises’ production or the economy, and minimizing the environmental load
caused by them.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123388
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388
Fig. 1. CO2 emissions and annual growth rate of China’s NMI during 2000e2016
Notes: The data were collected and calculated from the statistical yearbook.
degree of industrial relevance and play an important role in eco-
nomic construction, national defense construction, social devel-
opment and other aspects.3 China is the largest producer and
consumer of non-ferrous metals products, accounting for nearly
half of the world’s nonferrous metal production (Lin and Chen,
2019). Non-ferrous metals are indispensable in the industrial sys-
tem. However, the smelting and processing of non-ferrous metals
are accompanied by high energy consumption. The energy con-
sumption of China’s NMI (155.58 Mtoe) even exceeds the national
energy consumption of Italy (151.3 Mtoe) in 2016. Under the
background of green development, China’s NMI shoulders the re-
sponsibility of energy conservation, emission reduction and clean
production. The research on the evolution of eco-efficiency can
provide a meaningful reference for the sustainable development of
China’s NMI.
China is facing the pressure of ecological environmental pro-
tection while ensuring rapid economic development (Song et al.,
2018; Wang and Liu, 2018; Lin and Kuang, 2020). The improve-
ment of energy-saving and efficiency (Ouyang et al., 2018), the
improvement of the ecological environment and the high-quality
development of the economy (Song et al., 2015) cannot be
ignored in the process of ecological civilization construction. China
is working to establish a carbon market to manage GHG emissions,
including the current pilot cap-and-trade system.
Due to the urgent needs of China’s emission reduction and
sustainable development, China’s NMI, a heavy industry, has also
been included in the carbon emissions trading system (ETS) as a
pilot industry. The starting point of the establishment of carbon
market is to promote energy conservation and emission reduction,
so the high emission characteristics of NMI is an important reason
to be included in ETS. The CO2 emissions of China’s NMI have
increased significantly in recent years, with an annual growth rate
of 13.07%, increased from 98 million tons in 2000 to 701 million
tons in 2016, as shown in Fig. 1. The Chinese government has
strengthened its control over GHG emissions through various
methods such as command-and-control regulation and carbon
emissions trading. Achieving the improvement of eco-efficiency is
the common aspiration of the people and the government (Shao
et al., 2016).
3
Source: “Non-ferrous metal industry adjustment and revitalization plan”.
The reasonable evaluation of eco-efficiency needs to consider
both economic performance and environmental performance. To
this end, in this paper, we comprehensively consider environ-
mental and economic performance and establish an eco-efficiency
indicator to measure regional ecological performance from the
perspective of total-factor.
We hereby raise the following research questions. (1) What is
China’s NMI eco-efficiency change trend at the national and
regional levels? (2) What is the technology gap of regional eco-
efficiency in China’s NMI? (3) What are the causes of eco-
inefficiency and how are regional differences reflected? (4) What
are the factors that affect the change of eco-efficiency in China’s
NMI and what are their regional heterogeneity?
To achieve the above research objectives, we use the data of
China’s NMI in 2000e2016 through the DEA-Malmquist frame-
work. Within this framework, we discuss the sources of regional
eco-inefficiency and construct the dynamic evolution trend of
regional eco-efficiency through the establishment of contempora-
neous, intertemporal, and global production technology sets. In
addition, the driving forces of technical efficiency, technological
progress and technology leadership on the change of regional eco-
efficiency are also discussed.
Eco-efficiency research is extremely important for both the in-
ternational community and China. This paper has two contribu-
tions. On one hand, this paper enriches the literature of applying
the DEA-Malmquist framework to study eco-efficiency. Non-radial
efficiency measure and Malmquist analysis give full play to their
advantages in the construction and decomposition of dynamic eco-
efficiency, and appropriately depict the evolution of eco-efficiency.
On the other hand, the contribution is reflected in the content of the
research. China’s NMI has a special international status. This paper
can provide a meaningful reference for the sustainable develop-
ment of regional development in China’s NMI by analyzing the
causes of regional eco-inefficiency and the decomposition of eco-
efficiency.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows; in the second part,
the paper summarizes the literature related to eco-efficiency. The
third part introduces the methodology related to the construction
of dynamic eco-efficiency and data sources. The fourth part reports
and analyses the results. The fifth part is the summary of this paper
and the policy recommendations.
 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388
2. Literature review
Eco-efficiency is a comprehensive indicator for measuring the
sustainable development of economy and ecology. Recent de-
velopments have expanded the literature on eco-efficiency mea-
surement and research. The methods used and the variables
considered are more diverse. Among them, the DEA method is the
most widely used in efficiency measurement (Sueyoshi et al., 2017).
This method integrates various inputs, economic outputs and
environmental outputs involved in production activities to measure
eco-efficiency (Martin-Gamboa et al., 2017). There are many ad-
vantages in using DEA method to evaluate eco-efficiency, such as no
need to estimate parameters, not affected by dimensions, no prior
weight setting is required, and eliminates many subjective factors
(Fei and Lin, 2017; Zhou et al., 2012; Oh, 2010; Lin and Bai, 2020).
The DEA method can create the best practice boundary based on
samples, which is a valuable tool for eco-efficiency evaluation and
benchmarking.
In this part, we focus on relevant literature on the measurement
of eco-efficiency from both international and Chinese perspectives.
The studies widely used the DEA analysis framework to incorporate
diverse input-output variables into the analytical framework to
comprehensively assess economic and environmental
sustainability.
In Table 1, this paper summarizes the international studies on
eco-efficiency, which presents key information about the literature.
The methods used mainly include DEA-based model (Sueyoshi
et al., 2017), stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) (Robaina-Alves
et al., 2015), etc. Eco-efficiency studies cover a wide range of
countries, including European countries (Gomez-Calvet et al., 2016;
Monastyrenko, 2017), OECD countries (Camarero et al., 2013;
Rashidi and Saen, 2015), the United States (Egilmez and Park, 2014),
Spain (Picazo-Tadeo et al., 2012) and Iran (Arabi et al., 2014), etc.
The sectors involved are, for example, the cement industry (Oggioni
et al., 2011), the manufacturing sector (Ramli et al., 2013) and the
power plant (Munisamy and Arabi, 2015), etc.
Based on the heterogeneity of the sectors, these papers consider
more diversified inputs (such as water, energy and materials) and
output variables (such as CO2, NOx, SOx, dust). In a study of 22
OECD countries, Camarero et al. (2013) found that per capita in-
come is positively correlated with eco-efficiency, while countries
with higher air regulation requirements are more eco-efficient. In
research on Latin American countries, Moutinho et al. (2018)
believe that technological change and the implementation of
renewable energy policies are beneficial to decrease carbon in-
tensity and thus achieve environmental efficiency. Oggioni et al.
(2011) studied the eco-efficiency of the cement industry, and
compared the traditional industrialized countries with emerging
economies (such as China and India). The results show that coun-
tries with mandatory environmental regulations have relatively
better eco-efficiency performance.
Besides, a summary of the literature on China’s eco-efficiency is
shown in Table 2. The methods used in the research are also mostly
DEA-based models, mainly related to the industrial sector (Zhang
et al., 2017), the water sector (Liu et al., 2013), tourism industry
(Song and Li, 2019) and cement manufacturing (Long et al., 2017),
etc. Most studies are carried out from the provincial level. Yang
et al. (2017); Yang and Zhang (2018) indicated that there was a
big eco-efficiency gap between developed and underdeveloped
areas in China. Technological progress plays a decisive role in
improving performance, while the lack of management level is the
main obstacle to improving performance. They suggested encour-
aging technological innovation to promote coordinated economic
3
and ecological development.
In China’s industrial sector, studies such as Zhang et al. (2017)
emphasize the importance of technological innovation and indus-
trial structure. Yu et al. (2018) believed that clean technology and
foreign direct investment (FDI), as well as ownership structure, are
also important. In research on China’s sub-sectors, Long et al. (2015)
argued that environmental regulation should be strengthened. Yu
et al. (2016) believed that the scale effect and technology level of
pulp and paper industry should be improved. Liu et al. (2013) noted
that government management and regional cooperation are the
keys to improving the environmental efficiency of the water sector.
More in-depth studies on eco-efficiency, Martinez (2013); Arabi
et al. (2016); Long et al. (2015); Yu et al. (2016) and other papers
have combined the Malmquist index with eco-efficiency
decomposition.
In recent years, there are also studies on China’s NMI based on
DEA framework. Shao et al. (2016) studied the dynamic total factor
productivity (TFP) and found that technological progress is the
main factor to promote TFP growth. Wang and Zhao (2017) dis-
cussed the regional energy and environmental performance and
believed that investment is effective in promoting it. Besides, Wen
and Li (2014) simulated the CO2 emission reduction potential of five
nonferrous metals in different scenarios. Shao (2017) explored the
energy-saving potential by using the directional distance function
method. In the study of Wang and Feng (2018), they used the LMDI
method to analyze the driving factors affecting the change in en-
ergy consumption. Li et al. (2018) quantitatively evaluates the
impact of policies on CO2 emission reduction, and believed that
clean electricity is beneficial to CO2 emission reduction.
3. Methodology and data
3.1. Method
In this section, we introduce the methods used in this paper.
First, energy (E), capital (K), labor (L) are used as inputs to produce
non-ferrous metals (desirable output: Y) and CO2 emissions (un-
desirable output: C) in the production. To this end, we define the
feasible production set as Eq. (1):
T ¼ ððK; L; E; Y; CÞ : ðK; L; EÞ can produceðY; CÞÞ (1)
We then employ the non-radial direction distance function
(NDDF) to measure performance. NDDF is derived from the radial
distance function (Chambers et al., 1996; Chung et al., 1997), which
overcomes the problem of overestimation in radial efficiency
measurement. According to Zhou et al. (2012) and Zhang and Choi
(2013) NDDF is set as Eq. (2).
! n o
D ðK; L; E; Y; C; gÞ ¼ sup wT b : ððK; L; E; Y; CÞ þ g:diagðbÞÞ 2 T
(2)
where wT ¼ ðwK ; wL ; wE ; wY ; wC ÞT is normalized weight vector, this
paper sets the weight vector aswT ¼ ð1=9; 1=9; 1=9; 1=3; 1=3ÞT .
g ¼ ðgK ; gL ; gE ; gY ; gC Þ represents the direction vector, which
is set to g ¼ ðK;  L;  E; Y;  CÞ. b ¼
!
ðbK ; bL ; bE ; bY ; bC ÞT  0denotes the scaling factor. When D ðK; L; E; Y;
C; gÞ ¼ 0, it shows that the direction vector g of maximizing
desirable output and minimizing input and undesirable output is
the frontier of the eco-efficiency. The NDDF is solved by the
following DEA model which is shown in Eq. (3).
4 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388

Table 1
Literatures relevant to eco-efficiency research (except China).

Author Country/Region Sector Period Method Variables

Arabi et al. (2014) Iran 52 Power plants. 2003 SBM-MLindex Input: Capital, Fuel.
e2010 Output: Generated power & SO2, NOx, CO2.
Arabi et al. (2016) Iran 52 power plants. 2003 DEA, ML index Input: Fuel, Capital.
e2010 Output: Generated Electricity, Operational Availability & Deviation from
Generation Plan, SO2.
Camarero et al. 22 OECD 1980 DEA Output: GDP & CO2, NOX, SOX.
(2013) countries e2008
Egilmez and Park U.S Manufacturing EIO-LCA, DEA Input: Water, Energy.
(2014) sectors. Output: Economic output & Carbon.
Gomez-Limon et al. Spanish 292 Andalusian olive 2010 DEA Output: Net income & Environmental pressures.
(2012) farmers.
Gomez-Calvet et al. European Union 1993 DEA Output: GDP & CO2e, SO2, NOx.
(2016) (EU-27) e2010
Korhonen and European 24 power plants. DEA Input: Total costs.
Luptacik (2004) country Output: Electricity generation & DUST, NOx, SO2.
Lorenzo-Toja et al. Spanish 113 Wastewater 2009 LCA, DEA Electricity use, Chemical consumption, Sludge production.
(2015) treatment plants. e2012
Martinez (2013) Swedish Service industries. 1993 DEA-Malmquist Input: Energy.
e2008 Output: & CO2 emission.
Monastyrenko European 15 electricity 2005 DEA, ML index Input: Installed production capacity, Total operational expenditures.
(2017) Producers. e2013 Output: Generated electricity & CO2.
Moutinho et al. 16 Latin America 1994 DEA Input: Energy, Population density, Labor productivity, Renewable energy
(2018) countries e2003 consumption, Gross Capital Formation productivity.
Output: GDP & CO2.
Munisamy and Iran 48 power plants. 2003 SBM, meta- Input: Effective capacity, Fuel consumption
Arabi (2015) e2010 frontier ML index Output: Generated energy & SO2, NOx, Cox.
Oggioni et al. 21 countries Cement industry. 2005 DEA Input: Capacity, Energy, Labor, Materials
(2011) e2008 Output: Cement & CO2.
Picazo-Tadeo et al. Spanish Olive-growing farms. 2010 DEA Input: Labor, Fertilizers, Pesticides, Energy, Contracted services, Fixed costs.
(2012) Output: Net income & Erosion, Pesticide risk, Energy, CO2 fixation.
Ramli et al. (2013) Malaysia Manufacturing sector. 2009 Scale DDF Input: Operating expenditure, Capital.
Output: Sales value & CO2.
Rashidi and Saen 19 OECD 2012 DEA Input: Labor, Precipitation average, Energy.
(2015) countries Output: GDP & CO2.
Robaina-Alves 26 European 2000 SFA Input: Fossil fuel, Renewable Energy, Capital, Labor.
et al. (2015) countries e2011 Output: GDP & GHG.
Suh et al. (2014) South Korea 272 firms in 16 2008 DEA Input: CO2, Energy.
industries. e2010 Output: Production, value-added &

Notes: DEA means data envelopment analysis. DDF means directional distance function. SFA means stochastic frontier analysis. SBM means slack-based measure. ML means
Malmquist-Luenberger. EIO-LCA means economic input-output life cycle assessment. In the variable column, the variable before & is the desired output, and the variable after
& is the undesired output.

the true carbon intensity, and can be expressed as a Eq. (4).

!
D ðK; L; E; Y; C; gÞ ¼ maxwK bk þ wL bL þ wE bE þ wY bY þ wC bC
X
kJ   
s:t: Zj Kj Kj  bK gK C  b*C C Y þ b*Y Y 1  b*C
TEEI ¼ ¼ (4)
j¼1 C=Y 1  b*Y
X
kJ
Zj Lj Lj  bL gL b*C ; b*Y in Eq. (4) represent the optimal solutions of undesirable
j¼1 output (C) and desirable output (Y) in Eq. (3) respectively.
X
kJ 0  TEEI  1, the closer the TEEI value is to 0, the lower the eco-
Zj Ej Ej  bE gE efficiency, and vice versa. When the value of TEEI is equal to 1,
j¼1 the eco-efficiency is at the frontier.
X
kJ To measure the dynamic evolution of the eco-efficiency, index
Zj Yj Yj þ bY gY decomposition and group heterogeneity of China’s NMI, according
j¼1 to Oh (2010), three different production technology sets are intro-
X
kJ duced, i.e. contemporaneous, intertemporal and global production
Zj Cj ¼Cj  bC gC technology sets.
j¼1 For groupRh , the contemporaneous production technology set is
Zj  0; j ¼ 1; 2; 3; ::; J expressed as Eq. (5):
bK ; bL ; bE ; bY ; bC  0
(3)
     
Here, the static Total-factor Eco-efficiency Index (TEEI) of TRCh ¼ K t ; Lt ; Et ; Y t ; C t : K t ; Lt ; Et can produce Y t ; C t (5)
China’s NMI is constructed based on Zhou et al. (2012). TEEI is
measured by the ratio of the potential optimal carbon intensity to Correspondingly, NDDF is expressed as Eq. (6):
 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388 5

Table 2
Literatures relevant to eco-efficiency research (China).

Author Country Sector Period Method Variables

Fei and Lin (2017) China Agricultural sector 2001 DEA Input: Energy, Capital, Labor
e2012 Output: GDP & CO2.
Hu et al. (2019) China 281 wastewater treatment 2016 SBM-DEA Input: Investment, Energy, Operating cost, Relative capacity load rate,
plants. Wastewater.
Output: Removal efficiency of COD, TN, NH3eN, TP.
Huang et al. China 30 provinces. 2000 GB-US-SBM model Input: Energy, Capital, Labor, Land.
(2014) e2010 Output: GDP & COD, Wastewater, Exhaust gas, SO2, dust, Solid waste, Smoke
dust.
Huang et al. China 30 provinces 2001 GB-US-SBM model Input: Energy, Capital, Labor, Land, Water.
(2018) e2014 Output: GDP & CO2, SO2, Wastewater, COD, AN, Dust.
Huang et al. China 273 cities. 2003 DEA Input: Capital, Labor, Land, Water, Electricity.
(2018) e2015 Output: GDP & SO2, CO2, Dust.
Li et al. (2017) China 262 cities. 2005 SBM -DEA Input: Labor, Capital.
e2012 Output: GDP & SO2.
Liu et al. (2013) China Water system. 2010 DEA Input: Capital, Workforce.
Output: GDP, Public green areas, etc.
Long et al. (2015) China Cement manufactures. 2005 SBM-ML index Input: Capital, Labor, Coal, Electricity, Clinker.
e2014 Output: Cement & CO2.
Long et al. (2017) China Cement manufacturers. 2005 DDF, SBM Same as (Long et al., 2015)
e2014
Wang et al. (2019) China 28 typical coal-mining 2007 SFA Input: Resource input, System management.
cities. e2014 Output: GDP & Wastewater, SO2, Smoke, Dust
Xing et al. (2018) China 26 sectors. 2012 EIO-LCA, DEA Input: Energy.
Output: Economic output & Water withdrawal, CO2, Hazardous waste,
Wastewater, Exhaust emission.
Yang et al. (2017) China 30 provinces. 2003 DEA Input: Capital, Labor, Material resource.
e2012 Output: GDP & CO2, Household refuse, Wastewater.
Yang and Yang China Agriculture, Forestry, etc. 1978 Ecological footprint Human consumption, Energy, Pollution emissions, Land.
(2019) e2016 model
Yang and Zhang China 30 provinces. 2003 Global DEA Input: Capital, Labor, Material resource.
(2018) e2014 Output: GDP & Solid waste, Household refuse, SO2, Soot and industrial dust,
Wastewater.
Yu et al. (2016) China Pulp and paper industry. 2000 DEA-SBM model, ML Input: Water.
e2013 index Output: Industrial output & Wastewater, COD, Ammonia nitrogen.
Yu et al. (2018) China Industrial sector. 2001 DEA Input: Capital, Labor, Land, Water, Energy.
e2015 Output: Industrial output & Industrial environmental pollutants.
Zhang et al. (2008) China 30 provincial industrial 2004 DEA Input: Water, Resource, Energy.
sector. Output: Value-added & COD, Nitrogen, SO2, Soot, Dust, Solid Wastes.
Zhang et al. (2017) China Industrial sector. 2005 Three-stage DEA Input: Capital, Labor, Energy.
e2013 Output: Gross industrial output value.

Notes: DEA means data envelopment analysis. DDF means directional distance function. SFA means stochastic frontier analysis. SBM means slack-based measure. ML means
Malmquist-Luenberger. EIO-LCA means economic input-output life cycle assessment. GB-US means global benchmark-undesirable output, super efficiency. In the variable
column, the variable before & is the desired output, and the variable after & is the undesired output.

!C n    o
D ðK;L;E;Y;C;gÞ¼sup wT bC : ðK;L;E;Y;CÞþg:diag bC 2TRCh !G n
G
  
G
o
D ðK;L;E;Y;C;gÞ¼sup wT b : ðK;L;E;Y;CÞþg:diag b 2T G
(6)
(10)
The intertemporal production technology set is the envelope of
the contemporaneous production technology set, which is According to the NDDF defined by three types of production
expressed as Eq. (7): technology sets, the corresponding TEEI can be obtained by solving
the function, such as Eq. (11).

TRI h ¼ TRC1
h
∪TRC2
h
∪TRC3
h
∪:::∪TRCTh ; t ¼ 1; 2; 3; :::; T (7)

Correspondingly, NDDF is expressed as Eq. (8): " d*

.
d*
# S !S
  C  bC C Y þ bY Y 1 bd*
d S S S S S C
TEEI K ;L ;E ;Y ;C ¼ ¼ d*
n    o C=Y 1 bY
!I I I
D ðK;L;E;Y;C;gÞ¼sup wT b : ðK;L;E;Y;CÞþg:diag b 2TRI h (11)
(8)
TEEId means the eco-efficiency under three production tech-
The global production technology set is the envelope of the nologies, where d¼ C; I; G. bd* d*
C ; bY are the optimal solutions of
intertemporal production technology set, which is expressed as Eq. undesirable output (C) and desirable output (Y) based on the three
(9): production technology sets, respectively. S¼ t; tþ 1.
This paper constructs a similar indicator with reference to the
T G ¼ TRI 1 ∪TRI 2 ∪TRI 3 ∪:::∪TRI H ; h ¼ 1; 2; 3; :::; H (9) concept of technology gap ratio proposed by O’Donnell et al.
(2008). It measures the technology gap between decision unit j in
Correspondingly, NDDF is expressed as Eq. (10): group Rh and global frontier, which is expressed as Eq. (12).
6 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388

   
j
TEEIG ðK; L; E; Y; CÞjRh G t t tþ1 tþ1 TEEIG xtþ1 ; ytþ1
TGRRh ¼ (12) MNMEEI x ;y ;x ;y ¼ (16)
TEEII ðK; L; E; Y; CÞjRh TEEIG ðxt ; yt Þ
In Eq. (16), xrepresents input variables K; L; E and yrepresents
Because the global production technology set is the envelope of
output variables Y; C.
the intertemporal production technology set, that isT I 4 T G , so
This paper decomposes MNMEEI with reference to Oh and Lee
there’s alwaysTEEI G ðK; L; E; Y; CÞjRh  TEEI I ðK; L; E; Y; CÞjRh , that’s 0 < (2010) to obtain three indicators: technical efficiency change (EC),
TGR  1. best-practice gap change (BPC) and technology gap rate change
The value TGR indicates the heterogeneity of the two production (TGC). The decomposition process is shown in Eq. (17).

 
MNMEEIG xt ; yt ; xtþ1 ; ytþ1
    (    )
TEEIG xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEIC xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEIC xt ; yt TEEIG xtþ1 ; ytþ1
¼ ¼   
TEEIG ðxt ; yt Þ TEEI C ðxt ; yt Þ TEEIC xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEI G ðxt ; yt Þ
  (    ) (    )
TEEItþ1 xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEIC xt ; yt TEEII xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEII xt ; yt TEEIG xtþ1 ; ytþ1
¼        
TEEIt ðxt ; yt Þ TEEI tC xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEII ðxt ; yt Þ TEEI I xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEIG ðxt ; yt Þ
 .     .  
 
TEEIC xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEII xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEIC xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEIG xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEII xtþ1 ; ytþ1
¼   .  .
TEEIC ðxt ; yt Þ TEEII xtþ1 ; ytþ1 TEEIC ðxt ; yt Þ TEEI G ðxt ; yt Þ TEEII ðxt ; yt Þ

TEtþ1 BPGtþ1 TGRtþ1

¼  
TEt BPGt TGRt
¼ EC  BPC  TGC (17)

technologies and the difference of eco-efficiency between the two
production technologies. The closer TGR is to 0, the greater the
heterogeneity of eco-efficiency between the group and the global
production technology. The closer TGR is to 1, the closer the group is
to the global eco-efficiency frontier.
Due to the heterogeneity between the group and the global
production technology, the difference in eco-efficiency between the
two technology sets is obtained. To this end, with reference to Chiu
et al. (2012); Wang et al. (2013), this paper measures the Eco-
inefficiency (EIN) and decomposes it into technology gap eco-
inefficiency (TGEIN) and management eco-inefficiency (GMEIN), as
shown in Eq. (13). TGEIN represents the eco-inefficiency caused by
the gap between group and global production technology, as in Eq.
(14). GMEIN refers to the eco-inefficiency caused by management
failure in the same group with similar technology level, as in Eq. (15).
j j j the previous period.
EINRh ¼ TGEINRh þ GMEINRh
Technical efficiency change (EC) represents the movement of
eco-efficiency in the contemporaneous production technology set
and represents the change of technical efficiency (TE) related to
eco-efficiency. BPC represents the movement of eco-efficiency from
the contemporaneous production technology to the intertemporal
production technology, and represents the best-practice gap (BPG)
change related to the eco-efficiency. This index is equivalent to
technological progress. TGC represents the movement of the TGR
that is, the movement of the intertemporal production technology
to the global production technology, representing the changes in
the technology leadership of the group. The values of EC, BPCand
TGC are divided into three cases: <1, ¼1 and >1. When the value < 1,
the performance of the indicators is worse than that of the previous
period. When the value ¼ 1, the performance of the indicators is
unchanged compared with that of the previous period. When the
value > 1, the performance of the indicators is better than that of
(13)

 
j j j
TGEINRh ¼ TEEII ðK; L; E; Y; CÞRh  1  TGRRh
j I j the data from 2000 to 2016. Data of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao
GMEINRh ¼ 1  TEEI ðK; L; E; Y; CÞRh
Referring to Malmquist productivity index and decomposition
framework established by Caves et al. (1982); Fare et al. (1994); Oh
and Lee (2010); this paper constructs a dynamic eco-efficiency in-
dex, the Meta-frontier Non-radial Malmquist Eco-efficiency Index
(MNMEEI), expressed as Eq. (16). Where, meta-frontier refers to the
frontier of global production technology for all decision-making
units, which to be a function that envelops the deterministic
components of the group frontiers (O’Donnell et al., 2008). In this
paper, group frontier refers to the technology frontier of four re-
gions in China. And meta-frontier refers to China’s technology
frontier, which is equivalent to the global technology frontier.
3.2. Data
(14)
This paper evaluates the eco-efficiency of China’s NMI by using
(15)
are not available and some of the data of Hainan and Tibet are
missing, we, therefore, selected the data of 29 provinces in China.
This paper also divides China into four regions (eastern, central,
western and northeastern)4 to study the heterogeneity of regional
eco-efficiency. It should be noted here that we have linearly
interpolated and replaced the obvious outliers existing in the
4
Eastern China: Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian,
Shandong and Guangdong. Central China: Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei and
Hunan. Western China: Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou,
Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang. Northeast China: Heilongjiang,
Jilin and Liaoning.
 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388 7

Table 3
Descriptive statistic for regional variables.

Region China Eastern China Central China Western China Northeast China

Variables Unit N N N N N

Mean Mean Mean Mean Mean

Average growth rate Average growth rate Average growth rate Average growth rate Average growth rate
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%)

Input: L 10 thousand 493 7.21 2.96 153 6.89 4.87 102 11.08 3.79 187 6.08 1.67 51 4.58 1.67
Input: E 10 thousand tce 493 523.1 13.39 153 212.1 13.66 102 781.8 10.61 187 723.2 15.58 51 204.9 15.58
Input: K 100 million RMB 493 174.1 13.78 153 161.8 14.85 102 257.7 13.94 187 161 13.94 51 91.54 13.94
output: Y 100 million RMB 493 552.1 18.20 153 736.0 18.87 102 778.5 18.94 187 373.2 17.84 51 204 17.84
output: C 10 thousand tons 493 1224 13.07 153 498.8 13.09 102 1849 10.54 187 1677 15.24 51 485.9 15.24

sample. data (base period ¼ 2000) by using the industrial product ex-
The variables selected in this paper are energy, capital and labor factory price index (29 provinces in 2000e2016) from the China
(as input variables), gross industrial output (as desirable output) Urban (City) Life and Price Yearbook, in units of RMB 100 million.
and CO2 (as undesirable output) of China’s NMI. Table 3 is a
descriptive statistic for regional variables. Besides, the annual data Kt ¼ It þ ð1  dt Þ  Kt1 (18)
of variables are listed in the appendix, as shown in Table A .
E: Energy consumption is obtained by multiplying the physical
quantity of six major energy categories of coal, coke, gasoline,
4. Results and discussions
diesel, fuel oil and electricity, by corresponding standard coal
conversion coefficient. The data comes from the statistical year-
4.1. Regional TGR
books of the provinces and the unit is 10,000 tce. The energy
conversion coefficient comes from the China Energy Statistical
Fig. 2 shows the trend of TGR in China’s NMI during 2000e2016,
Yearbook (CESY).
obtained according to Eq. (12). It is the change in the ratio of static
C: CO2 emissions are obtained by multiplying the six major
eco-efficiency under the intertemporal and global production
energy categories by corresponding CO2 coefficient, with a unit of
technology set.
10,000 tons. The CO2 conversion coefficient5 is calculated according
First, the average TGR is a downward trend during the sample
to the method reported by IPCC2006. This paper calculates the
period, which represented the enlargement of the heterogeneity of
proportion of CO2 emissions of various energy varieties at the na-
the group’s eco-efficiency, and the group’s technology level moves
tional level, as shown in Table B in the Appendix. The CO2 emissions
away from the global technology frontier. Second, the TGR ¼ 1 in
of the energy varieties considered in this paper account for
the eastern region indicates that its group technology is the global
93.7e95% of the total emissions of China’s NMI, which shows that
technology frontier, and the technical level in eastern China is
the six energy varieties are representative.
advanced, which is consistent with China’s actual situation.
K: The perpetual inventory method is used to calculate the
Furthermore, the TGR in the central, western and northeastern
capital stock, as shown in Eq. (18), whereKt1 andKt represent the
China showed a downward trend. This trend indicates that the
capital stock of period t  1 and t respectively. It represents the
distance between the group eco-efficiency frontier and global eco-
investment in the period t. dt denotes the depreciation rate of the
efficiency frontier is enlarged. The economic development level and
period t. We followed Lin and Chen (2019), to obtain the depreci-
population density of these three regions are relatively small
ation rate of the industry. The data needed for the calculation of
compared to eastern China. The negative externalities of NMI on
capital stock comes from the CSY and China’s Industrial Economics
eco-efficiency are lower in these regions than in eastern China.
Statistical Yearbook (CIESY). The net value of fixed assets in 2000 is
selected as the capital stock in the base period (2000). Besides, the
capital stock is adjusted to the comparable data (base 4.2. Eco-inefficiency decomposition
period ¼ 2000) by using the fixed asset investment price index, and
the unit is 100 million RMB. The data for this index in different There are two sources of eco-inefficiency in China’s NMI. They
provinces (2000e2016) is derived from the CSY. are technology gap eco-inefficiency (TGEIN) and management eco-
L: The number of employees in CIESY is selected as the proxy inefficiency (GMEIN), which are calculated by Eq. (13,14,15) . The
variable of labor. Due to the lack of data in 2012, this paper uses the change of regional eco-inefficiency is shown in Fig. 3a3b3c3d3e.
linear interpolation of data in 2011 and 2013 to obtain data for On one hand, the average eco-inefficiency trend of China’s NMI
2012. The unit is 10000. is declining. This shows the improvement of eco-efficiency on the
Y: The gross industrial output value comes from CISEY. The data national average. Regionally, the eco-inefficiency decline trend is
for 2000e2011 is directly available, and the data for 2012e2016 is obvious in the eastern and central China, while the eco-inefficiency
constructed through the industrial sales value of 2012e2016. in the other two regions has not decreased significantly.
Further, this paper adjusts the desirable output to the comparable On the other hand, the regional changes in TGEIN and GMEIN
are obvious. The eco-inefficiency in eastern China is mainly due to
management eco-inefficiency, and a downward trend. The eastern
region itself is at the technology frontier of China’s eco-efficiency. In
5
When calculating the CO2 conversion coefficient of electricity, we considered the future, continuing to strengthen the management efficiency of
the proportion of thermal power in the power generation structure. Thermal power the NMI is the key to improving the eco-efficiency in eastern China.
is the main source of CO2 at the power generation end. Therefore, when calculating
the CO2 emission coefficient of electricity, we have taken into account the change in
In addition, the central, western and northeastern China all
the proportion of thermal power in each year. This paper uses the same electricity showed an increasing trend of technology gap inefficiency and a
CO2 emission coefficient for all provinces. declining trend of management eco-inefficiency during the sample
8 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388
Fig. 2. Regional TGR of China’s NMI during 2000e2016.
period. In the production of NMI, although there are improvements
in management efficiency, we need to pay attention to the fact that
the trend of technology gap inefficiency has been rising, similar to
the previous discussion on the downward trend of the TGR in these
regions.
4.3. Dynamic eco-efficiency and its decomposition in China’s NMI
Further, this paper constructs the dynamic index, MNMEEI, of
eco-efficiency according to Eq. (16, 17), and decomposes the index
by Malmquist to get three factors affecting the improvement of eco-
efficiency in China’s NMI.
Fig. 4 and Table 4 shows the dynamic trend of regional eco-
efficiency of China’s NMI. The eco-efficiency of each region has
increased relative to the base period, but the trend tells us that the
increase of eco-efficiency in 2000e2016 shows obvious regional
differences. The eco-efficiency of China’s NMI increased by 161.4%
during the sample period (2000e2016), with an annual average of
6.19%.
The change of eco-efficiency in eastern China is higher than the
national average and other regions. During the sample period, the
cumulative increase is 350.4%, and the annual growth rate is 9.86%.
The technology level of production and strict environmental
regulation (Song et al., 2018) in the eastern region contributed to
keeping its eco-efficiency ahead of the rest of China.
The annual growth rate of eco-efficiency in central China (6.11%)
is close to the national average, and it began to rise around 2008.
Benefited by the Chinese government’s support for regional coor-
dinated development (Zhang et al., 2017), the support of relevant
policies has promoted the improvement of production technology
in central China and the improvement of eco-efficiency.
Although the eco-efficiency of the western region and the
northeast region has improved, it is lower than the national average
and fluctuates greatly. The enlargement of the technology gap in-
efficiency inhibits the improvement of eco-efficiency. The
improvement of production technology is particularly urgent for
the improvement of eco-efficiency in these two regions, and it is
also necessary to continue to improve management efficiency.
The dynamic eco-efficiency of China’s NMI, MNMEEI, was
decomposed to obtain three indicators, EC, BPC and TGC. EC mea-
sures the movement of eco-efficiency under the contemporaneous
technology set, indicating the technical efficiency change of China’s
NMI, shown in Fig. 5.
On the one hand, the national average EC has an obvious upward
trend, and the Multiplicative EC increased by 882% during the
sample period. The arithmetic mean growth rate is 15.9%. On the
other hand, the technical efficiency of the western region has
increased most obviously (17.48% on average), followed by the
eastern region (16.29% on average), both of which are higher than
the national average. The central region is lower than the national
average but is on the rise (6.49% on average). However, the tech-
nical efficiency of the northeastern region has declined (- 0.06% on
average).
BPC measures the movement of eco-efficiency from the
contemporaneous technology set to the intertemporal technology
set, indicating technological progress. The change of regional BPC is
shown in Fig. 6.
On the one hand, the multiplicative BPC of China’s NMI is on the
rise, with a multiplicative increase of 1400% during the sample
period and an average annual growth of 18.46%. On the other hand,
the BPC in each region has been improved. BPC in the eastern re-
gion increased most significantly (21.96% on average), which is
higher than the national average. Next is the northeastern region
(17.04% on average), then the central region (14.05% on average),
and finally the western region (7.5% on average). These three re-
gions are lower than the national average.
Here, we combine the results of EC with BPC for analysis. The
effects of EC and BPC on the eco-efficiency of eastern China are both
obvious. However, it is noteworthy that EC and BPC have played a
differentiated role in the promotion of eco-efficiency in the other
three regions of China. The improvement of eco-efficiency in the
central and northeastern China is mainly due to the promotion of
technological progress, while the western region relies on the
improvement of technical efficiency. The main reason may be that
X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388 9

Fig. 3. Fig. 3a: Changes of TGEIN and GMEIN in China

Fig. 3b: Changes of TGEIN and GMEIN in Eastern China
Fig. 3c: Changes of TGEIN and GMEIN in Central China
Fig. 3d: Changes of TGEIN and GMEIN in Western China
Fig. 3e: Changes of TGEIN and GMEIN in Northeast China.

the central and northeastern China is closer to the eastern than the
western, and it is most convenient to receive technology transfer
from the eastern region.
TGC measures the intertemporal movement of the TGR, indi-
cating the improvement of technology leadership, as shown in
Fig. 7.
According to the national average trend, the Multiplicative TGC
decreased by 32% and the annual average decreased by 2.34%,
indicating the decline of the national average technology leader-
ship. However, from a regional perspective, the annual TGC of the
eastern region is 1, which shows that the eastern region is in the
leading position of China’s NMI. However, the TGC in the central,
western and northeastern regions decreased by 2.32%, 5.03% and
1.61%, respectively. This enlightens us that the three regions should
strengthen the R&D and introduction of advanced technologies
related to eco-efficiency improvement, hence, promote the coor-
dinated regional development of China’s NMI.

4.4. Discussions

The results of regional TGR show that the eastern region is the
leader in eco-efficient technologies for the NMI in China. Eastern
region has national advanced technology and management (Wang
et al. (2013)). In the study of China’s energy efficiency, Wang et al.
(2013) also found that eastern China is at the frontier of national
technology. The decrease of TGR indicates the expansion of the gap
between regional and eco-efficiency best technologies. This re-
minds us that we should focus on economically underdeveloped
regions (Yang and Zhang, 2018), especially the western and
northeastern regions, and strengthen the related technologies
(Zhang et al., 2017) to improve eco-efficiency to narrow the gap
with the global technology frontier.
The decomposition results of eco-inefficiency found that in
addition to technical level, the improvement of management effi-
ciency is also the key to solving eco-inefficiency. Improve the
management level, strengthen the efficiency of technology appli-
cation and raise awareness of energy saving (Wang et al. (2013)) to
resolve the eco-inefficiency of China’s NMI. The rise of regional
TGEIN and the decline of TGR both reveal that the regional average
technology level has fallen relative to the optimal technology level
(the eastern region).
In the DEA-Malmquist framework, the trend of regional eco-
efficiency is obtained. The results show that the eco-efficiency of
China’s NMI keeps rising during the sample period, and the
regional performance was different, and the improvement in the
eastern region was particularly significant. In a similar study using
the DEA framework, China’s energy efficiency (Hu and Wang,
2006), environmental efficiency (Wang et al., 2013) and sectoral
efficiency (such as Fei and Lin, 2016) has been significantly
improved, and the improvement of the eastern region is the most
noticeable. The difference of regional regulation intensity (Bi et al.,
2014), technical level (Fei and Lin, 2017) and management level
(Huang et al., 2014) results in the difference of regional efficiency
improvement.
The three driving factors obtained by decomposing MNMEEI
have regional heterogeneity, which means that their contributions
to regional eco-efficiency change are different (Yu et al., 2016). and
10 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388

Fig. 4. Regional multiplicative MNMEEI of China’s NMI during 2000e2016.

particularly important, Shao et al., 2016 also believes that these two
Table 4 factors are crucial for improving TFP. The investment in advanced
Regional arithmetic mean growth rate of indexes during 2000e2016 (%). technology and the development of clean energy are also effective
Region MNMEEI EC BPC TGC for the NMI to achieve cleaner production (Wang and Zhao, 2017).
Eastern China 9.86 16.29 21.96 0.00
Central China 6.11 6.49 14.05 2.32 5. Conclusions and policy recommendations
Western China 2.74 17.48 7.50 5.03
Northeast China 2.30 0.06 17.04 1.61 5.1. Conclusions
China Average 6.19 15.35 18.46 2.34

In this paper, we use the DEA meta-frontier Malmquist analysis

other literature also found that there is heterogeneity in improving
regional efficiency. This enlightens us that we need to continue to
take advantage of the factors that play a role in improving the eco-
efficiency of China’s NMI. In different regions, both the improve-
ment of technical efficiency and technological progress is
framework and the non-radial distance function to study the
changes in the eco-efficiency of China’s NMI in 2000e2016. This
paper focuses on China’s NMI to study the changes of eco-efficiency
with feasibility and practical significance. This paper discusses the
regional technology gap ratio related to eco-efficiency and the
sources of regional eco-inefficiency. Moreover, this study also an-
alyzes the evolution of regional eco-efficiency and the main factors
that promote the change of eco-efficiency. The main conclusions of

Fig. 5. Regional multiplicative EC of China’s NMI during 2000e2016.

 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388 11

Fig. 6. Regional multiplicative BPC of China’s NMI during 2000e2016.

Fig. 7. Regional multiplicative TGC of China’s NMI during 2000e2016.

this paper are summarized as follows.
First, the eastern region has the highest technology level in
China. The frontier of the eco-efficiency of China’s NMI in the
eastern region is the global frontier. The TGR related to eco-
efficiency is declining in the other three regions, which directly
indicates that the technology gap is widening relative to the global
technology frontier, which is worthy of caution. The average eco-
inefficiency trend of China’s NMI is declining. The source of eco-
inefficiency in eastern China is mainly management inefficiency.
The central, western and northeastern China all showed an
increasing trend of technology gap inefficiency and a declining
trend of management inefficiency during the sample period. This
shows that the development and introduction of advanced tech-
nologies are particularly important to reduce the technology gap
inefficiency and improve the eco-efficiency.
Second, the average trend of the eco-efficiency of China’s NMI is
improving both nationally and regionally, but regional heteroge-
neity is obvious. From the decomposition results of the three in-
dicators, they have different effects on the improvement of
industrial eco-efficiency. Improvements in technical efficiency and
technological progress have played an obvious role in the
improvement of eco-efficiency in eastern China. Moreover, the
eastern region is at the frontier of technology leadership. Based on
the analysis of this paper, the improvement of eco-efficiency in the
central and northeastern China is mainly due to the promotion of
technological progress, while the western region relies on the
improvement of technical efficiency.
5.2. Policy recommendations
According to the above conclusions, to achieve environmental
sustainability and improve the regional eco-efficiency, this paper
puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations for
improving the eco-efficiency.
Firstly, the technology gap and management inefficiency among
regions of China’s NMI need to be focused on. To promote the green
development of NMI, it is particularly important to adjust the
production structure, technology progress and improve the man-
agement level. Eastern China is at the frontier of technology lead-
ership and has the best eco-efficiency improvement in China’s NMI,
12 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388

while the technology gap between the other three regions and
eastern China has increased year by year, resulting in the expansion
of eco-inefficiency. To this end, research related to eco-efficiency
improvement should be strengthened, and technology exchange
and technology transfer between regions should be promoted. The
production of NMI should pay more attention to the renewal of
production capacity rather than expansion (Li et al., 2018; Song
et al., 2018), and the high-level replacement of inefficient tech-
nologies to achieve green production capacity update (Song et al.,
2018). Technological progress in the central, western and north-
east China can narrow the gap with the global technology frontier,
thereby improving the overall eco-efficiency level of China’s NMI.
Secondly, implementing stricter environmental regulation pol-
icies can promote enterprises to make more effective use of pro-
duction technology and strengthen environmental management.
Reasonable regional regulations can promote the innovation effect
of enterprises and enhance the industry competition effect (Song
et al., 2018; Lin and Chen, 2020). The improvement of the man-
agement level reduces the regional eco-inefficiency to varying de-
grees. This paper supports the further improvement of
management efficiency to promote resource conservation and
emission reduction (Wang et al., 2016) to reduce eco-inefficiency.
Thirdly, the central and the northeast regions are close to
eastern China, and the geographical advantages of the convenience
of technology learning and talent introduction should be fully
utilized. For the western region, technological innovation is needed
while improving technical efficiency.
Chongqing has incorporated NMI into the carbon emission
trading pilot to promote low-carbon development. The nationwide
carbon emission trading pilot is worth promoting (Lin and Jia,
2019), because under the condition of the scarcity of total emis-
sions, market participants can be more motivated to tap the po-
tential of green development (Lin and Jia, 2019), thereby promoting
the improvement of eco-efficiency.
In brief, eco-efficiency is a comprehensive measure of economic,
resource and environmental performance. The improvement of
eco-efficiency is related to the sustainability of human develop-
ment. Economic development is important, but improvements in
eco-efficiency and regional coordinated development are also
critical. Besides, ecological carrying capacity must also be
considered (Arabi et al., 2016).
This paper has potential limitations. On the one hand, this paper
considers six major energy categories as energy inputs of NMI. The
reason is that most provinces only officially reported main energy
consumption varieties (there are differences in energy varieties
reported by all provinces). To ensure the comparability of energy
consumption among provinces, only six major energy varieties
were selected without considering other kinds of energy. On the
other hand, we regard CO2 emissions as the undesirable output of
NMI in this paper. In the actual situation, there will be other
emissions such as wastewater, SO2 and so on. Due to the availability
of data, we have no way to obtain these relevant emissions. Based
on our discussion, the current research results can also provide
some reference for the study of the eco-efficiency in NMI.
Furthermore, if relevant emissions data such as wastewater and
solid waste can be obtained in the future, the results of this paper
will be further improved.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Xing Chen: Methodology, Software, Data curation, Writing -
original draft. Boqiang Lin: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Software, Data curation, Writing - original draft.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The paper is supported by Report Series from Ministry of Edu-
cation of China (No. 10JBG013).
Appendix A

Table A
Annual data of variables

Units Labor (L) Energy (E) Capital stock (K) Output (Y) CO2 emissions (C)

10 thousand 10 thousand tce 100 million RMB 100 million RMB 10 thousand tons

2000 154 4100.407 1450.21 2581.92 9829.616

2001 154.08 4494.906 1527.309 2947.687 10503.53
2002 144.98 5081.293 1622.525 3369.872 11979.93
2003 147.68 5964.548 1726.584 4326.486 14243.04
2004 166.3 7734.503 2031.176 5994.87 18045.59
2005 172.46 8676.722 2350.914 7178.09 20711.6
2006 181.88 10795.96 2762.643 8988.388 25975.64
2007 210.2 13412.5 3314.742 11412.52 32483.69
2008 238.22 14320.6 4202.402 13839.7 34253.27
2009 227.3 15710.76 4941.997 16227.06 37489.31
2010 246.54 18854.84 6117.045 18044.55 44485.25
2011 245.62 21103.1 6303.644 20563.21 50267.91
2012 252.745 20150.74 7194.97 23749.04 46451.01
2013 259.87 22415.59 8363.329 28377.81 51802.55
2014 262.34 26088.21 9753.608 32014.82 59586.62
2015 251.84 28362.75 10696.64 35089.99 65070.96
2016 239.42 30606.46 11439.36 37486.02 70187.93
 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388 13

Table B
Proportion of CO2 emissions of various energy types in China’s NMI

% Coal Coke Gasoline Diesel oil Fuel oil Electric- Coke oven gas Blast Converter Other Other coking Crude oil
ity furnace gas gas products

2000 20.26 6.34 0.45 1.61 1.60 63.47 0.02 e e 0.64 0.35 0.02
2005 14.65 5.43 0.14 1.10 1.35 71.53 0.28 e e 0.75 0.41 4.83*103
2010 10.48 4.94 0.15 0.75 0.83 77.17 0.30 e 1.8*103 0.50 0.06 0.01
2016 9.08 2.74 0.06 0.38 0.21 82.53 0.14 0.01 e 0.90 0.12 0.01

Keros- Lubricants White Bitumen Petroleum LPG Other petroleum Natural LNG Heat Other energy This paper
ene spirit asphalt coke products gas considered

2000 0.05 e e e e 0.02 0.80 0.10 e 4.27 e 93.74

2005 0.05 e e e e 0.08 1.13 0.43 e 2.67 e 94.21
2010 0.02 5.34*104 2.6*104 0.02 1.39 0.10 0.89 0.45 1.65*104 1.95 e 94.33
2016 0.01 1.86*103 3.1*104 0.05 1.11 0.02 0.04 0.69 1.64*103 1.83 0.06 95.02

References industry. Energy 199.

Lin, B., Chen, X., 2019. Evaluating the CO2 performance of China’s non-ferrous
metals Industry: a total factor meta-frontier Malmquist index perspective.
Arabi, B., Munisamy, S., Emrouznejad, A., Shadman, F., 2014. Power industry
J. Clean. Prod. 209, 1061e1077.
restructuring and eco-efficiency changes: a new slacks-based model in
Lin, B., Chen, X., 2020. Environmental regulation and energy-environmental per-
Malmquist-Luenberger Index measurement. Energy Pol. 68, 132e145.
formance-Empirical evidence from China’s non-ferrous metals industry.
Arabi, B., Munisamy, S., Emrouznejad, A., Toloo, M., Ghazizadeh, M.S., 2016. Eco-
J. Environ. Manag. 269, 110722-110722.
efficiency considering the issue of heterogeneity among power plants. Energy
Lin, B.Q., Jia, Z.J., 2019. What are the main factors affecting carbon price in Emission
111, 722e735.
Trading Scheme? A case study in China. Sci. Total Environ. 654, 525e534.
Bi, G.B., Song, W., Zhou, P., Liang, L., 2014. Does environmental regulation affect
Lin, B.Q., Kuang, Y.M., 2020. Natural gas subsidies in the industrial sector in China:
energy efficiency in China’s thermal power generation? Empirical evidence
National and regional perspectives. Appl Energ 260.
from a slacks-based DEA model. Energy Pol. 66, 537e546.
Liu, Y.Y., Sun, C.Z., Xu, S.G., 2013. Eco-efficiency assessment of water systems in
Camarero, M., Castillo, J., Picazo-Tadeo, A.J., Tamarit, C., 2013. Eco-efficiency and
China. Water Resour. Manag. 27 (14), 4927e4939.
convergence in OECD countries. Environ. Resour. Econ. 55 (1), 87e106.
Long, X.L., Sun, M., Cheng, F.X., Zhang, J.J., 2017. Convergence analysis of eco-
Caves, D.W., Christensen, L.R., Diewert, W.E., 1982. The economic-theory of index
efficiency of China’s cement manufacturers through unit root test of panel
numbers and the measurement of input, output, and productivity. Econo-
data. Energy 134, 709e717.
metrica 50 (6), 1393e1414.
Long, X.L., Zhao, X.C., Cheng, F.X., 2015. The comparison analysis of total factor
Chambers, R.G., Chung, Y.H., Fare, R., 1996. Benefit and distance functions. J. Econ.
productivity and eco-efficiency in China’s cement manufactures. Energy Pol. 81,
Theor. 70 (2), 407e419.
61e66.
Chiu, C.R., Liou, J.L., Wu, P.I., Fang, C.L., 2012. Decomposition of the environmental
Lorenzo-Toja, Y., Vazquez-Rowe, I., Chenel, S., Marin-Navarro, D., Moreira, M.T.,
inefficiency of the meta-frontier with undesirable output. Energy Econ. 34 (5),
Feijoo, G., 2015. Eco-efficiency analysis of Spanish WWTPs using the LCA plus
1392e1399.
DEA method. Water Res. 68, 651e666.
Chung, Y.H., Fare, R., Grosskopf, S., 1997. Productivity and undesirable outputs: a
Martin-Gamboa, M., Iribarren, D., Garcia-Gusano, D., Dufour, J., 2017. A review of
directional distance function approach. J. Environ. Manag. 51 (3), 229e240.
life-cycle approaches coupled with data envelopment analysis within multi-
Egilmez, G., Park, Y.S., 2014. Transportation related carbon, energy and water
criteria decision analysis for sustainability assessment of energy systems.
footprint analysis of US manufacturing: an eco-efficiency assessment. Transport
J. Clean. Prod. 150, 164e174.
Res D-Tr E 32, 143e159.
Martinez, C.I.P., 2013. An analysis of eco-efficiency in energy use and CO2 emissions
Fare, R., Grosskopf, S., Norris, M., Zhang, Z., 1994. Productivity growth, technical
in the Swedish service industries. Soc. Econ. Plann. Sci. 47 (2), 120e130.
progress, and efficiency change in industrialized countries. Am. Econ. Rev. 84
Monastyrenko, E., 2017. Eco-efficiency outcomes of mergers and acquisitions in the
(1), 66e83.
European electricity industry. Energy Pol. 107, 258e277.
Fei, R.L., Lin, B.Q., 2016. Energy efficiency and production technology heterogeneity
Moutinho, V., Fuinhas, J.A., Marques, A.C., Santiago, R., 2018. Assessing eco-
in China’s agricultural sector: a meta-frontier approach. Technol Forecast Soc
efficiency through the DEA analysis and decoupling index in the Latin Amer-
109, 25e34.
ica countries. J. Clean. Prod. 205, 512e524.
Fei, R.L., Lin, B.Q., 2017. Technology gap and CO2 emission reduction potential by
Munisamy, S., Arabi, B., 2015. Eco-efficiency change in power plants: using a slacks-
technical efficiency measures: a meta-frontier modeling for the Chinese agri-
based measure for the meta-frontier Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index.
cultural sector. Ecol. Indicat. 73, 653e661.
J. Clean. Prod. 105, 218e232.
Gomez-Calvet, R., Conesa, D., Gomez-Calvet, A.R., Tortosa-Ausina, E., 2016. On the
O’Donnell, C.J., Rao, D.S.P., Battese, G.E., 2008. Metafrontier frameworks for the
dynamics of eco-efficiency performance in the European Union. Comput. Oper.
study of firm-level efficiencies and technology ratios. Empir. Econ. 34 (2),
Res. 66, 336e350.
231e255.
Gomez-Limon, J.A., Picazo-Tadeo, A.J., Reig-Martinez, E., 2012. Eco-efficiency
Oggioni, G., Riccardi, R., Toninelli, R., 2011. Eco-efficiency of the world cement in-
assessment of olive farms in Andalusia. Land Use Pol. 29 (2), 395e406.
dustry: a data envelopment analysis. Energy Pol. 39 (5), 2842e2854.
Hu, J.L., Wang, S.C., 2006. Total-factor energy efficiency of regions in China. Energy
Oh, D.H., 2010. A metafrontier approach for measuring an environmentally sensitive
Pol. 34 (17), 3206e3217.
productivity growth index. Energy Econ. 32 (1), 146e157.
Hu, W.Q., Guo, Y., Tian, J.P., Chen, L.J., 2019. Eco-efficiency of centralized wastewater
Oh, D.H., Lee, J.D., 2010. A metafrontier approach for measuring Malmquist pro-
treatment plants in industrial parks: a slack-based data envelopment analysis.
ductivity index. Empir. Econ. 38 (1), 47e64.
Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 141, 176e186.
Ouyang, X.L., Zhuang, W.X., Du, G., 2018. Output elasticities and inter-factor sub-
Huang, J.H., Xia, J.J., Yu, Y.T., Zhang, N., 2018. Composite eco-efficiency indicators for
stitution: empirical evidence from the transportation sector of Shanghai.
China based on data envelopment analysis. Ecol. Indicat. 85, 674e697.
J. Clean. Prod. 202, 969e979.
Huang, J.H., Yang, X.G., Cheng, G., Wang, S.Y., 2014. A comprehensive eco-efficiency
Picazo-Tadeo, A.J., Beltran-Esteve, M., Gomez-Limon, J.A., 2012. Assessing eco-
model and dynamics of regional eco-efficiency in China. J. Clean. Prod. 67,
efficiency with directional distance functions. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 220 (3),
228e238.
798e809.
Huang, Y., Li, L., Yu, Y.T., 2018. Does urban cluster promote the increase of urban
Ramli, N.A., Munisamy, S., Arabi, B., 2013. Scale directional distance function and its
eco-efficiency? Evidence from Chinese cities. J. Clean. Prod. 197, 957e971.
application to the measurement of eco-efficiency in the manufacturing sector.
Korhonen, P.J., Luptacik, M., 2004. Eco-efficiency analysis of power plants: an
Ann. Oper. Res. 211 (1), 381e398.
extension of data envelopment analysis. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 154 (2), 437e446.
Rashidi, K., Saen, R.F., 2015. Measuring eco-efficiency based on green indicators and
Li, A.J., Zhang, A.Z., Zhou, Y.X., Yao, X., 2017. Decomposition analysis of factors
potentials in energy saving and undesirable output abatement. Energy Econ. 50,
affecting carbon dioxide emissions across provinces in China. J. Clean. Prod. 141,
18e26.
1428e1444.
Robaina-Alves, M., Moutinho, V., Macedo, P., 2015. A new frontier approach to
Li, M.J., Mi, Z.F., Coffman, D., Wei, Y.M., 2018. Assessing the policy impacts on non-
model the eco-efficiency in European countries. J. Clean. Prod. 103, 562e573.
ferrous metals industry’s CO2 reduction: evidence from China. J. Clean. Prod.
Shao, L.G., He, Y.Y., Feng, C., Zhang, S.J., 2016. An empirical analysis of total-factor
192, 252e261.
productivity in 30 sub-sub-sectors of China’s nonferrous metal industry. Res.
Li, Z., Ouyang, X.L., Du, K.R., Zhao, Y., 2017. Does government transparency
Pol. 50, 264e269.
contribute to improved eco-efficiency performance? An empirical study of 262
Shao, S., Luan, R.R., Yang, Z.B., Li, C.Y., 2016. Does directed technological change get
cities in China. Energy Pol. 110, 79e89.
greener: empirical evidence from Shanghai’s industrial green development
Lin, B., Bai, R., 2020. Dynamic energy performance evaluation of Chinese textile
14 X. Chen, B. Lin / Journal of Cleaner Production 277 (2020) 123388
transformation. Ecol. Indicat. 69, 758e770.
Shao, Y.M., 2017. Analysis of energy savings potential of China’s nonferrous metals
industry. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 117, 25e33.
Song, M.L., Li, H., 2019. Estimating the efficiency of a sustainable Chinese tourism
industry using bootstrap technology rectification. Technol Forecast Soc 143,
45e54.
Song, M.L., Wang, R., Zeng, X.Q., 2018. Water resources utilization efficiency and
influence factors under environmental restrictions. J. Clean. Prod. 184, 611e621.
Song, M.L., Wang, S.H., Cen, L., 2015. Comprehensive efficiency evaluation of coal
enterprises from production and pollution treatment process. J. Clean. Prod.
104, 374e379.
Sueyoshi, T., Yuan, Y., Goto, M., 2017. A literature study for DEA applied to energy
and environment. Energy Econ. 62, 104e124.
Suh, Y., Seol, H., Bae, H., Park, Y., 2014. Eco-efficiency based on social performance
and its relationship with financial performance A cross-industry analysis of
South Korea. J. Ind. Ecol. 18 (6), 909e919.
Wang, D.L., Wan, K.D., Yang, J.Y., 2019. Measurement and evolution of eco-efficiency
of coal industry ecosystem in China. J. Clean. Prod. 209, 803e818.
Wang, F., Liu, X.Y., 2018. Assessment of the economic impacts of continuous energy
intensity target constraint in China: based on an analytical general equilibrium
model. J. Clean. Prod. 189, 197e210.
Wang, J., Zhao, T., 2017. Regional energy-environmental performance and invest-
ment strategy for China’s non-ferrous metals industry: a non-radial DEA based
analysis. J. Clean. Prod. 163, 187e201.
Wang, K., Yu, S.W., Zhang, W., 2013. China’s regional energy and environmental
efficiency: a DEA window analysis based dynamic evaluation. Math. Comput.
Model. 58 (5e6), 1117e1127.
Wang, M., Feng, C., 2018. Decomposing the change in energy consumption in
China’s nonferrous metal industry: an empirical analysis based on the LMDI
method. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 82, 2652e2663.
Wang, Q.W., Hang, Y., Sun, L.C., Zhao, Z.Y., 2016. Two-stage innovation efficiency of
new energy enterprises in China: a non-radial DEA approach. Technol Forecast
Soc 112, 254e261.
Wang, Q.W., Zhao, Z.Y., Zhou, P., Zhou, D.Q., 2013. Energy efficiency and production
technology heterogeneity in China: a meta-frontier DEA approach. Econ.
Modell. 35, 283e289.
Wen, Z.G., Li, H.F., 2014. Analysis of potential energy conservation and CO2 emis-
sions reduction in China’s non-ferrous metals industry from a technology
perspective. Int J Greenh Gas Con 28, 45e56.
Xing, Z.C., Wang, J.G., Zhang, J., 2018. Expansion of environmental impact assess-
ment for eco-efficiency evaluation of China’s economic sectors: an economic
input-output based frontier approach. Sci. Total Environ. 635, 284e293.
Yang, L., Tang, K., Wang, Z.H., An, H.Z., Fang, W., 2017. Regional eco-efficiency and
pollutants’ marginal abatement costs in China: a parametric approach. J. Clean.
Prod. 167, 619e629.
Yang, L., Yang, Y.T., 2019. Evaluation of eco-efficiency in China from 1978 to 2016:
based on a modified ecological footprint model. Sci. Total Environ. 662,
581e590.
Yang, L., Zhang, X., 2018. Assessing regional eco-efficiency from the perspective of
resource, environmental and economic performance in China: a bootstrapping
approach in global data envelopment analysis. J. Clean. Prod. 173, 100e111.
Yu, C., Shi, L., Wang, Y.T., Chang, Y., Cheng, B.D., 2016. The eco-efficiency of pulp and
paper industry in China: an assessment based on slacks-based measure and
Malmquist-Luenberger index. J. Clean. Prod. 127, 511e521.
Yu, Y.T., Huang, J.H., Zhang, N., 2018. Industrial eco-efficiency, regional disparity, and
spatial convergence of China’s regions. J. Clean. Prod. 204, 872e887.
Zhang, B., Bi, J., Fan, Z.Y., Yuan, Z.W., Ge, J.J., 2008. Eco-efficiency analysis of in-
dustrial system in China: a data envelopment analysis approach. Ecol. Econ. 68
(1e2), 306e316.
Zhang, J.X., Liu, Y.M., Chang, Y., Zhang, L.X., 2017. Industrial eco-efficiency in China: a
provincial quantification using three-stage data envelopment analysis. J. Clean.
Prod. 143, 238e249.
Zhang, N., Choi, Y., 2013. Total-factor carbon emission performance of fossil fuel
power plants in China: a metafrontier non-radial Malmquist index analysis.
Energy Econ. 40, 549e559.
Zhou, P., Ang, B.W., Wang, H., 2012. Energy and CO2 emission performance in
electricity generation: a non-radial directional distance function approach. Eur.
J. Oper. Res. 221 (3), 625e635.
Zhou, P., Wang, M., 2016. Carbon dioxide emissions allocation: a review. Ecol. Econ.
125, 47e59.