How has the efficiency of China's green development evolved? An improved non-radial directional distance function measurement

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2022-04, Vol.815, p.152337-152337, Article 152337
• Main Authors: Liu, Kai-di, Shi, Dongsheng, Xiang, Wenjing, Zhang, Wentao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: China; Data envelopment analysis; Efficiency; Efficiency measurement; environment; Green development; Humans; Mainland China; Research Design; Sustainable Development; vision
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152337

As a key choice for human sustainable development, green development is also one of China's five major vision points. To explore the level of green development in China since it was first written into national documents in 2011, this paper applies an improved non-radial distance function based on Data Envelopment Analysis method to analyze the progress against the development targets set in related national documents. The results show that: (1) China's green development efficiency has kept increasing in 2011–2017. (2) The growth in green development efficiency was significantly higher in the 13th Five-Year Plan period compared to the 12th Five-Year Plan period. (3) The green development efficiency shows a decreasing trend from south to north, east of the Hu line. This study provides a more practical idea for evaluating the quality of green development in mainland China. [Display omitted] •An improved non-radial directional distance function is applied for assessing green development efficiency (GDE).•Feasible region of the model is reconstructed with additional constraints on the regional green development targets.•The spatial standard deviation ellipse is first introduced to the field of GDE analysis.