Within-group common benchmarking the environmental efficiency in China with data envelopment analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaoxin Cheng ◽  
Sheng Ang
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Water Consumption ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Environmental Efficiency ◽  
Significant Variable ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Environmental Evaluation ◽  
Common Reference

Purpose Economic growth of China in the past decades has caused rapid increase in energy consumption and environmental deterioration. Therefore, it is critical to make an environmental evaluation and to help decision makers to know each province’s distance to the optimal target and improve environmental performance. Design/methodology/approach In such background, the authors use a within-group common benchmarking model with data envelopment analysis for China’s environmental evaluation and target setting in this paper. This model considers a common treatment of decision-making units within groups but allows for the different circumstances across groups and gives a common reference set for benchmarking. Findings The results show that there are regional difference in economic development and environmental protection. The coastal area has the best average environmental efficiency, then followed by inland area and the lowest level is the western area. The target results show that in four inputs, namely, population, capital, energy consumption and water consumption, the water consumption is the significant variable which should be decreased largely. All provinces have room to improve their economic level under the condition of a better environment. Originality/value In this research, the authors consider the similarity in geography and economy for Chinese provinces and divide 30 provinces into eight economic zones; thus, provinces in the same zone are evaluated with the same weight. Environmental performance and efficiency for each province can be obtained. Efficient targets for those inefficient provinces are provided as a possible improvement direction as well.

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

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingxian An ◽  
Zhaokun Cheng ◽  
Shasha Shi ◽  
Fenfen Li
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Environmental Efficiency ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Efficiency Measure ◽  
Tobit Regression ◽  
Xiangjiang River ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Exogenous Factors

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

scholarly journals Environmental Performance Assessment of Energy-Consuming Sectors Through Novel Data Envelopment Analysis

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yangang Xue ◽  
Muhammad Mohsin ◽  
Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary ◽  
Nadeem Iqbal
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Electricity Sector ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Primary Input ◽  
Decision Making Unit ◽  
Energy Consuming ◽  
The Government

This study evaluates the role of information in the environmental performance index (EPI) in different energy-consuming sectors in Pakistan through a novel slack-based data envelopment analysis (DEA). The index combines energy consumption as the primary input and gross domestic product (GDP) as the desirable output and CO2 emissions as the undesirable output. Yale’s EPI measures the efficiency of the sectoral level environmental performance of primary energy consumption in the country. Performance analysis was conducted from 2009 to 2018. The sectors were assigned scores between one and zero, with zero indicating maximum decision-making unit (DMU) inefficiency and one indicating maximum DMU efficiency. Despite being in the top-performing sector, agriculture scored only 0.51 in 2018, and the electricity sector obtained 0.412. Results also show that even the best-performing sector operates below the efficiency level. The mining and quarrying sector ranked second by obtaining 0.623 EPI and 0.035 SBEPI. Results also show that much of the energy supply of Pakistan (60.17%) is focused on fossil fuels, supplemented by hydropower (33%), while nuclear, wind, biogas, and solar power account for 5.15%, 0.47%, 0.32%, and 0.03%, respectively. Nonetheless, the overall results for both measures remained reasonably consistent. According to the literature and the energy crisis and climate instability dilemma, the authors conclude that changes to a diverse green power network are a possibility and an imminent need. Similarly, the government should penalize companies with poor performance. Furthermore, to ensure the capacity development and stability of environmental management and associated actions in the country, providing access to knowledge and training to groom human resources and achieve the highest performance is crucial.

Assessing the efficiency of environmental regulations of large-scale enterprises based on extended fuzzy data envelopment analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuhong Wang ◽  
Hui Yu ◽  
Malin Song
Keyword(s):  
Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Fuzzy Numbers ◽  
Environmental Regulations ◽  
Environmental Efficiency ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Triangular Fuzzy Numbers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Trapezoidal Fuzzy Numbers ◽  
Fuzzy Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Proposed Model

Purpose As the functions of environmental regulations cannot be quantified while assessing their environmental efficiency, there has been no comprehensive evaluation of environmental efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate environmental regulations based on triangular and trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses L-R fuzzy numbers to transform the evaluation language into triangular fuzzy numbers, and adopts an α-level flexible slacks-based measurement model to evaluate the performance of these regulations. Trapezoidal fuzzy numbers are combined with a data envelopment analysis model, and an α-slack-based measurement (SBM) model is used to evaluate the environmental efficiency. The α-SBM model is confirmed to be stable and sustainable. Findings Relevant index data from 16,375 enterprises were collected to test the proposed model, and models corresponding to triangular fuzzy numbers and trapezoidal fuzzy numbers were used to evaluate their environmental efficiency. Comparative results showed that the proposed model is feasible and stable. Originality/value The main contributions of this study are twofold. First, this paper provides a valuable evaluation method for environmental regulation. Second, our research improves the practical performance of trapezoidal fuzzy data envelopment analysis and enhances its feasibility and stability.

scholarly journals Natural and Managerial Disposability Based DEA Model for China’s Regional Environmental Efficiency Assessment

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 3436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyang Zhou ◽  
Hao Chen ◽  
Hao Wang ◽  
Benjamin Lev ◽  
Lifang Quan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Environmental Efficiency ◽  
Scale Efficiency ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Efficiency Assessment ◽  
Radial Model ◽  
Better Than

With the acceleration of industrialization, a large amount of energy consumption has brought tremendous pressure to the natural environment. In order to prevent environmental pollution and promote sustainable development, the environmental efficiency assessment as an effective way to provide decision-making basis has been given wide attention. This study measures the environmental efficiency of 30 provinces in China from 2006 to 2015 based on the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) environmental assessment radial model both under natural disposability and managerial disposability that considered the constant variable return to scale (RTS) and the damage to scale (DTS). In addition, the scale efficiency under the two kinds of disposability of China’s 30 provinces were also measured. We found that the environmental efficiencies of different provinces in China showed regional disparities. Provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong had a good performance in unified environmental efficiency and scale efficiency both under natural disposability and managerial disposability. Generally speaking, the eastern regions always performed better than the central and western regions in unified environmental efficiency during the observed years. Therefore, policies should be established to distribute the resources in balance between the east, center, and west to further promote environmental efficiency.

A data envelopment analysis (DEA) model for building energy benchmarking

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 747-768 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baabak Ashuri ◽  
Jun Wang ◽  
Mohsen Shahandashti ◽  
Minsoo Baek
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Scale Efficiency ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Dea Model ◽  
Energy Benchmarking

Purpose Building energy benchmarking is required for adopting an energy certification scheme, promoting energy efficiency and reducing energy consumption. It demonstrates the current level of energy consumption, the value of potential energy improvement and the prospects for additional savings. This paper aims to create a new data envelopment analysis (DEA) model that overcomes the limitations of existing models for building energy benchmarking. Design/methodology/approach Data preparation: the findings of the literature search and subject matter experts’ inputs are used to construct the DEA model. Particularly, it is ensured that the included variables would not violate the fundamental assumption of DEA modeling, DEA convexity axiom. New DEA formulation: controllable and non-controllable variables, e.g. weather conditions, are differentiated in the new formulation. A new approach is used to identify outliers to avoid skewing the efficiency scores for the rest of the buildings under consideration. Efficiency analysis: three distinct efficiencies are computed and analyzed in benchmarking building energy: overall, pure technical, and scale efficiency. Findings The proposed DEA approach is successfully applied to a data set provided by a utility management and energy services company that is active in the multifamily housing industry. Building characteristics and energy consumption of 124 multifamily properties in 15 different states in the USA are found in the data set. Buildings in this data set are benchmarked using the new DEA energy benchmarking formulation. Building energy benchmarking is also conducted in a time series manner showing how a particular building performs across the period of 12 months compared with its peers. Originality/value The proposed research contributes to the body of knowledge in building energy benchmarking through developing a new outlier detection method to mitigate the impact of super-efficient and super-inefficient buildings on skewing the efficiency scores of the other buildings; avoiding ratio variables in the DEA formulation to adhere to the convexity assumption that existing DEA methods do not follow; and distinguishing between controllable and non-controllable variables in the DEA formulation. This research contributes to the state of practice through providing a new energy benchmarking tool for facility managers and building owners that strive to relatively rank the energy-efficiency of their properties and identify low-performing properties as investment targets to enhance energy efficiency.

scholarly journals Measuring the Productivity of Energy Consumption of Major Industries in China: A DEA-Based Method

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xishuang Han ◽  
Xiaolong Xue ◽  
Jiaoju Ge ◽  
Hengqin Wu ◽  
Chang Su
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Malmquist Productivity Index ◽  
Productivity Index ◽  
Productivity Change ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Decision Making Units

Data envelopment analysis can be applied to measure the productivity of multiple input and output decision-making units. In addition, the data envelopment analysis-based Malmquist productivity index can be used as a tool for measuring the productivity change during different time periods. In this paper, we use an input-oriented model to measure the energy consumption productivity change from 1999 to 2008 of fourteen industry sectors in China as decision-making units. The results show that there are only four sectors that experienced effective energy consumption throughout the whole reference period. It also shows that these sectors always lie on the efficiency frontier of energy consumption as benchmarks. The other ten sectors experienced inefficiency in some two-year time periods and the productivity changes were not steady. The data envelopment analysis-based Malmquist productivity index provides a good way to measure the energy consumption and can give China's policy makers the information to promote their strategy of sustainable development.

Fuzzy preference programming formulation in data envelopment analysis for university department evaluation

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dyanne Brendalyn Mirasol-Cavero ◽  
Lanndon Ocampo
Keyword(s):  
Data Envelopment Analysis ◽  
Real Life ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Data Accessibility ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
University Department ◽  
Fuzzy Dea ◽  
Fuzzy Preference

Purpose University department efficiency evaluation is a performance assessment on how departments use their resources to attain their goals. The most widely used tool in measuring the efficiency of academic departments in data envelopment analysis (DEA) deals with crisp data, which may be, often, imprecise, vague, missing or predicted. Current literature offers various approaches to addressing these uncertainties by introducing fuzzy set theory within the basic DEA framework. However, current fuzzy DEA approaches fail to handle missing data, particularly in output values, which are prevalent in real-life evaluation. Thus, this study aims to augment these limitations by offering a fuzzy DEA variation. Design/methodology/approach This paper proposes a more flexible approach by introducing the fuzzy preference programming – DEA (FPP-DEA), where the outputs are expressed as fuzzy numbers and the inputs are conveyed in their actual crisp values. A case study in one of the top higher education institutions in the Philippines was conducted to elucidate the proposed FPP-DEA with fuzzy outputs. Findings Due to its high discriminating power, the proposed model is more constricted in reporting the efficiency scores such that there are lesser reported efficient departments. Although the proposed model can still calculate efficiency no matter how much missing and unavailable, and uncertain data, more comprehensive data accessibility would return an accurate and precise efficiency score. Originality/value This study offers a fuzzy DEA formulation via FPP, which can handle missing, unavailable and imprecise data for output values.

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