Sustainability Governance in China: An Analysis of Regional Ecological Efficiency

The role of trade liberalization in promoting regional integration and sustainability: The case of regional comprehensive economic partnership

In globalization’s era, the sustainability of a region is inseparable from the in-depth and close economic and trade cooperation of intra-regional countries to achieve complementary advantages, intra-regional and extra-regional positive economic cycles, and stable and balanced benefits distribution. For Asia-Pacific countries, the lack of deep cooperation in the past has affected their sustainability, but this can be made up for by the RCEP agreement aimed at achieving intra-regional trade liberalization. We adopt the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) simulation analysis method to quantitatively analyze the impact of changes in macroeconomic and international trade indicators of several intra-regional countries after implementing the RCEP tariff reduction and exemption on the RCEP. Simulation results and comparative analysis based on international relations prove that despite the interference of trade benefits conflicts and international political factors, the RCEP can still exist in long term, and effectively promote regional economic integration and sustainability in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also a development opportunity for intra-regional countries and can also be used in the context of globalization providing references for integration and sustainability in other regions.

Green finance, technological progress, and ecological performance-evidence from 30 Provinces in China

The interaction between green finance and other factors, such as ecological environment, has been a research hotspot nowadays. Especially, the reasonable guiding of capital into energy conservation and environmental protection industries would greatly affect those factors, so as to the relation between them. This paper aimed to analyze the relationships between green finance, technological progress, and ecological performance quantitatively. The entropy method was used to respectively construct the system of index for green finance and technological progress, and index for ecological performance was measured by the super-SBM model. The panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model was selected to empirically analyze dynamic relationships based on datasets from 30 provinces in China during 2008-2019 period. The results told that (1) from 2008 to 2019, China's overall level of green finance, technological progress and ecological performance increased to varying degrees. Spatially, the areas with high-developed green finance greatly coincided with those such as large cities or the eastern coast that had good financial development. The distribution of technological progress index were similar, except some underdeveloped areas with relatively advanced scientific research institutes. The ecological performance, however, was high in the South and low in the north. (2) In the lag for 3 years, the influence of green finance on ecological performance in different regions was all positive for that all the coefficient symbols that passed the significance test were above 0, while that on technological progress was negative first and then positive. And the effects of technological progress on ecological performance were positive in ecological regions and negative in low ecological regions (0.0893 and -0.1211 in the case of three-stage lag respectively). (3) The contribution of green finance to ecological performance was high according to the results of variance decomposition, maintained at about 30%, and that of technological progress increased year by year (from 0.000 to 0.039). Therefore, we proposed to strengthen the development of green finance in underdeveloped regions. The emphasis should be laid on the researches and applications of green technology, the formulation of financing policies in innovation compensation and the establishment of a dynamic monitoring system for the ecological environment.

Assessment of Ecological Efficiency and Environmental Sustainability of the Minjiang-Source in China

Ecological sustainability is treated as a main reflection of the synergy among social development, economic growth and environmental protection, while ecological efficiency is an index used to reflect the sustainable development of the ecological environment. The super efficiency model with undesirable outputs (SE-SBM) model was applied to measure the eco-efficiency of the 12 counties in the Minjiang-Source, China, in 2005–2017. The spatial and temporal evolution and spatial differentiation of the eco-efficiency were analyzed. The results showed that the eco-efficiency of 67.7% of the 12 counties remains at a low level but with an increasing trend. A typical spatial aggregation effect was found with the characteristics of “high in the east and low in the west”. The Malmquist-Luenberger index shows a trend of fluctuation with the same trend between scale efficiency and technical efficiency changes. The results proved the positive effect of technological progress on local eco-efficiency. Environmental regulation has a positive impact on eco-efficiency in the short term and an inhibition effect in the long run. Hence, technological innovation and industrial adjustment will be an effective way to improve the eco-efficiency of the Minjiang-Source and promote its sustainability.

Research on the Structural Features and Influential Factors of the Spatial Network of China’s Regional Ecological Efficiency Spillover

A regional coordinated development strategy is an important measure that is often used to implement sustainable development in China. However, many obstacles greatly limit the realization of regional ecological coordinated sustainable development. In this paper, ecological efficiency is utilized as an important indicator of sustainable development, and the network analysis method is used to explore the spatial correlation relationship of regional ecological coordinated sustainable development. This paper calculates the ecological efficiency of each region using the Window slacks-based measure (Window-SBM) model, formulates the spatial network of regional ecological efficiency spillover through the vector auto-regressive (VAR) Granger causality model, and analyzes the spatial spillover relationship and influencing factors of regional ecological efficiency by using the social network analysis method. It is found that the spillover network of ecological efficiency in each region presents a typical core-edge structure. In addition, there is an obvious hierarchical structure among blocks with different directions and functions. Industrial structure, economic development, and geographical proximity have a positive impact on the spatial spillover of regional ecological efficiency, while environmental regulation has a negative impact. Finally, relevant policy suggestions are put forward.

Factor price distortion and ecological efficiency: the role of institutional quality

There is a lack of studies on whether market distortions inhibit the ecological efficiency. This study introduces the ecological efficiency based on the bootstrap-data envelopment analysis (DEA) method as the indicator of environmental performance in China, uses the transcendental logarithmic production function to calculate factor price distortion, and further identifies whether the factor price distortion has a negative impact on the ecological efficiency using the system generalized method of moments (GMM) method. Meanwhile, institutional quality is considered a threshold variable to examine the relationship between factor price distortion and ecological efficiency based on the threshold model. The result shows that factor price distortion significantly inhibits the improvement of ecological efficiency. Moreover, institutional quality is considered to be the threshold of factor price distortion affecting ecological efficiency. Further investigation of heterogeneity effect suggests that the inhibitory impact of factor price distortion on ecological efficiency is more significant in the central and western regions. This study provides a supplement to the study on environmental performance from the perspective of factor distortions and expands the framework of the influence mechanism of factor price distortion affecting ecological efficiency.

Environmental Protection and Corporate Responsibility: The Perspectives of Senior Managers and CxOs in China

In the mid-2000s, China’s environmental crisis had become a major social and political ‘hot spot’. In the interest of civic conciliation, national stability, and performance legitimacy, the Chinese government responded by introducing the ‘Scientific Approach to Development’ as part of the 11th Five-Year Plan in 2005. It signaled a significant policy shift, in which the government reoriented China’s national goals away from ‘Growth First’ policies and toward a model of sustainable development. In this study, we explore how Chinese business leaders reacted to this significant policy change. Specifically, our aim is three-fold: (1) to identify how senior managers and CxOs (executives or owners of enterprises, including CEOs, CFOs, CSOs) of Chinese firms responded to the explicit and systemic introduction of environmental management in the 11th Five-Year Plan; (2) examine motivations and justifications associated with their responses; (3) and explore contexts in which different motivations connected to organizational change and its management. In our study, we examine the perspectives of 72 senior managers and CxOs in China. We find that the integration of environmental management and corporate responsibility policies was predominately driven by national, international, and market contexts, and motivated by instrumental, relational, and moral considerations. We identify complex strategies and implementation plans that transformed government directives into multiple and overlapping business strategies. The main contribution of our study is the identification of specific sets of strategies employed by firms to concurrently comply with government directives and seek profits. Broadly speaking, these environmental management strategies are divided into compliance, a pursuit of competitive advantage, and a structural integration of environmental management.