Empirical Analysis on Environmental Regulation Performance Measurement in Manufacturing Industry: A Case Study of Chongqing, China

In terms of absolute scale, manufacturing industry is still the largest industry in China and an important industry to promote China’s economic development. Although China’s manufacturing industry has developed rapidly, it is still at the middle or lower end of the industrial chain and the value chain, and it trades for rapid industrial growth at the cost of “high pollution and high energy consumption.” At the same time, due to the imperfection of environmental supervision system and mechanism, the problems of ecological damage and environmental pollution in most areas of China are becoming more and more serious. Especially in recent years, environmental pollution incidents keep breaking out, and the public’s attention to the ecological environment has increased unprecedentedly. The government frequently issued regulatory policies, using various regulatory means to control the impact of industrial enterprises’ pollutant emissions on the environment [1]. Chongqing is an important strategic fulcrum for the development of Western China, an important junction of “The Belt and Road” economic belt and the Yangtze river economic belt, as well as an important inland city opening to the outside world. It is also an important ecological barrier and water conservation area in the upper reaches of the Yangtze river. With the rapid economic growth in recent ten years, the discharge of waste water, waste gas and solid waste is also on the rise year by year. Water environment, atmospheric environment and soil environment pollution events occur from time to time. Chongqing, as a miniature of the development of China’s manufacturing industry, is also a beautiful city with mountains and rivers. How does it balance the relationship between economic development and ecological environment protection? It is of great significance and popularization value to explore the environmental regulation performance of manufacturing industry in Chongqing. Taking Chongqing as an example, from the perspective of input-output, this paper constructs three input indicators and eight output indicators respectively [2], selects the relevant data of 29 manufacturing industries in Chongqing from 2008 to 2017, and uses the SBM method of unexpected output to measure the effect of environmental regulation performance of manufacturing industry, as well as the difference of regulation performance of various industries, so as to improve the environmental regulation performance of manufacturing industry for the government and to provide a theoretical basis for the improvement of the policy, which has a certain reference value for the environmental pollution control of the global industrialized cities.

According to the collected data, the performance of environmental regulation of 29 manufacturing industries in Chongqing was measured by Max DEA software, and the SBM efficiency value of environmental regulation of manufacturing industry in Chongqing was obtained. The SBM efficiency value of environmental regulation of manufacturing industry in Chongqing was analyzed from the perspective of the whole industry and the sub-industry respectively. The SBM efficiency value represents the performance level of environmental regulation in Chongqing manufacturing industry, and when the SBM efficiency value is 1, it indicates that the environmental regulation performance of the decision-making unit is effective; when the SBM efficiency value is greater than or equal to 0.75 and less than 1, the environmental regulation performance of the decision-making unit is a little effective. When the SBM efficiency value is greater than or equal to 0.5 or less than 0.75, the environmental regulation performance of the decision-making unit is weak; when the SBM efficiency value is less than 0.5, the environmental regulation performance of the decision-making unit is invalid.

3.1

Overall Regulation Performance of Manufacturing Industry in Chongqing

Table 2 shows the SBM efficiency value of environmental regulation performance of Chongqing manufacturing industry from 2008 to 2017, and Figure 1 shows the trend of SBM efficiency value. From this, we can see that between 2008 and 2017, the efficiency of environmental regulation performance of Chongqing manufacturing industry is relatively high, with an average value of 0.7806, which shows that the overall regulatory performance of Chongqing is in a little bit effective state. Among them, the efficiency value in 2008 is as high as 0.9366, which is close to the effective state; the efficiency values in 2009–2013 are between 0.75 and 0.9, which is a little effective; the efficiency value in the remaining years is between 0.6 and 0.75, which is in a weakly effective state. The efficiency value is the lowest in 2016, which is 0.6993. From this, we can see that although the overall performance of environmental regulation of manufacturing industry in Chongqing is declining, the decline is not significant, and environmental regulation is in an effective state [8]. In particular, in 2016, the emission of pollutants from Chongqing manufacturing industry declined the most, but the performance of environmental regulation tended to be low. The main reason is that in 2016, Chongqing vigorously strengthened the capacity building of grass-roots environmental protection in villages and towns (streets), and the number of environmental protection systems reached the maximum in 2016, so the efficiency of input and output were relatively reduced [9].

Table 2

Average efficiency and ranking of manufacturing industries in Chongqing from 2008 to 2017

Year	SBM efficiency	Ranking
2008	0.9366	1
2009	0.7896	4
2010	0.7758	6
2011	0.8305	2
2012	0.8042	3
2013	0.7763	5
2014	0.7477	7
2015	0.7368	8
2016	0.6993	10
2017	0.7093	9
Average	0.7806	-

Fig. 1

From 2008 to 2017, the overall environmental regulation performance of manufacturing industry in Chongqing was in a little effective state, with the average SBM efficiency value of 0.7806. Although the efficiency value is high, it cannot be ignored that the overall performance of environmental regulation in Chongqing’s manufacturing industry is declining, especially in recent years. The government should pay great attention to it and take effective measures to curb the decline of environmental regulation performance [13]. The efficiency of environmental regulation varies greatly among manufacturing industries [14]. The highest SBM value is in waste resources comprehensive utilization industry and the textile and apparel industry, in which the performance of environmental regulation is close to the effective state. Furniture Manufacturing, Printing and Recording Media Reproduction, Instrument Manufacturing, Wood Processing and Wood, Bamboo, Rattan, Grass Products, Chemical Fiber Manufacturing, Tobacco Products, Food Manufacturing, Rubber and Plastic Products, Nonferrous Metals Smelting and Calendering, Computer, Communication and other Related Equipment and Electronic Equipment Manufacturing Industry, Paper Making and Paper products industry, Leather, Fur, Feather and its Products and Footwear Industry, Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Industry, Special Equipment Manufacturing Industry, Ferrous Metal Smelting and Calendering Industry, Chemical Raw Materials and Chemical Products Manufacturing Industry, these 16 industries have high environmental regulation performance and are in a little effective state. Metal Products Industry, Electrical Machinery and Equipment Manufacturing Industry, Petroleum, Coal and other Fuel Processing Industry, Non-metallic Mineral Products Industry, General Equipment Manufacturing Industry, Textile Industry, Wine/Beverage and Refined Tea Manufacturing Industry, Automobile Manufacturing Industry, Agricultural Food Processing Industry, other Manufacturing Industries, Railway, Ship, Aerospace and other Transportation Equipment Manufacturing Industry, the environmental regulation performance of these 11 industries is relatively low and is in a weak effective state. Therefore, the government should consider the next step to focus on environmental regulation measures in the 11 industries with low SBM value in order to improve the performance of environmental regulation. From 2008 to 2017, the trend of environmental regulation performance of different industries is not consistent. Overall, food manufacturing, textile and apparel industry, clothing industry, instrument manufacturing industry, waste resources comprehensive utilization industry and other four industries basically maintain a fairly high level, the overall performance of environmental regulation is in an effective and a little effective state. Furniture manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, railway, shipping, aerospace and other transportation equipment manufacturing industries are rising in fluctuation, and they are in the more effective and weak state of environmental regulation performance respectively. The SBM efficiency values of the other 22 industries are declining in fluctuation, which is consistent with the change trend of the overall efficiency values of manufacturing industry. It indicates that the government’s environmental regulation measures and efforts vary from industry to industry [15]. Based on the empirical results, we can find the main direction of future policies. First, we should give full play to the positive externality of environmental regulation and further enhance the intensity of environmental regulation, thus strengthening the competitive advantage of the industry. Special attention should be paid to the 11 industries with relatively low performance of environmental regulation. Environmental regulation should be strictly protected from the perspective of legalization and institutionalization, environmental related law enforcement procedures should be strictly standardized, law enforcement intensity should be improved, and illegal costs should be greatly increased. The second is to flexibly use environmental policies and innovate the organic combination of environmental regulation and manufacturing agglomeration. As different industries will also have different degrees of environmental pollution, differentiated measures should be taken according to specific conditions. For example, for monopoly industries and capital-intensive industries, strict environmental regulation policies can be implemented to keep pollution discharge activities out of the threshold, and environmental pollution can also be improved by exerting industrial agglomeration effect. When formulating environmental protection policies, full consideration should be given to whether it can promote scientific and technological innovation and industrial structure upgrading, so that it can really play a role in controlling environmental pollution [16]. The third is to further improve relevant policies and enhance the technological innovation capability of Chongqing’s manufacturing industry. Manufacturing occupies a dominant position in Chongqing’s economic system and is the key to promote the sustained and healthy development of the local economy. Intelligent manufacturing should be taken as the main direction of future industrial upgrading, efforts should be made to promote the application of new technologies, new formats and new modes, and key industries should be encouraged to upgrade and replace key core equipment. Support small and medium-sized micro-enterprises to develop characteristic products and cultivate independent intellectual property rights and brands [17]. At the same time, taking the construction of parent factories of large enterprises as the starting point, we will cultivate a number of key industry flaunt enterprises based on the development of new formats, technologies and modes. Comprehensive use of subsidies, government procurement and other forms to encourage large enterprises to provide technical support and services to small and medium-sized enterprises in the region and the supply chain, to form an ecosystem with overall improvement of technological capabilities.