Sustainability governance in China: An analysis of regional ecological efficiency

Abstract

The Chinese government is committed to sustainability governance to alleviate the shortage of energy and the imbalance between ecological environment and economic development. This paper evaluates and analyzes the sustainability governance performance of China. A bootstrap data envelopment analysis (DEA) is proposed to evaluate sustainability governance performance of 30 provinces based on ecological efficiency in China from 1998 to 2015. The results indicate that the ecological efficiency of China significantly improved as a whole, which is related to the decline in sulfur dioxide emissions. Among these provinces, Jiangsu, Liaoning, and Inner Mongolia exhibited the highest values, while Gansu, Chongqing, and Sichuan had the lowest values. The 30 provinces were divided into four sub-areas. The average ecological efficiency of the eastern area was the highest, followed by the northeast area. Compared to the east area, northeast area, and central area, we find that west area obviously falls behind. As such, the results provide helpful guidance to improve ecological governance performance.