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The huge energy consumption and high pollutants emission have restrained the sustainable development of China's iron and steel industry. It is very necessary to explore those underlying obstacles which hinder the sustainable development of this industry from a systematic point. This paper adopted an improved emergy based method and a set of indicator system to evaluate the sustainability of steel production enterprises, in which dilution method, disability adjusted life years (DALY) method and potentially disappeared fraction (PDF) method were integrated into classic emergy analysis to quantify the impact of emissions, and then the related indicator system characterizing the industrial production process was put forward. One steel production enterprise in Sichuan Province, China, as a case, was studied using the proposed methods and indicator system. The research results show that this enterprise is not sustainable in the long term, due to large share of nonrenewable inputs and strong dependence on imported inputs; emissions' impact further aggravates this situation due to the increasing environmental loading; the proposed methods and indicator system can act as one of helpful tools for decision-making in steel & iron industry. Finally, this paper gives some corresponding suggestions so as to improve the comprehensive performance of this enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is experiencing rapid development and suffering from resource depletion and increasing environmental emissions. It is necessary to identify the key patterns of resource use in different Chinese regions so that more appropriate solutions can be raised. Under such a circumstance, the aim of this paper is to scientifically measure and evaluate the sustainability of natural resources utilization of 30 Chinese provinces for the year of 2007 by adopting a bio-perspective method-emergy analysis. After referring to the traditional emergy accounting method, several emergy-based indicators were established to evaluate resource flows, structure, efficiency and the overall sustainable level of different Chinese regions. Furthermore, by employing GIS technology, spatial distribution of natural resources was presented to illustrate emergy consumption with various regional characteristics in 30 Chinese provinces, which may help better understand regional disparities of resource utilization. The results show that regions with most emergy consumption include Shanxi (2.07E+24sej) and Shandong (2.07E+24sej), and most regions with higher resource consumption locate in east China, while less developed region Qinghai has the highest sustainability level, with ESI being 44.82. Another key finding is that renewable resources were very important to sustainability development, and a large amount of consumption on non-renewable resources led to higher environmental press on local and surrounding ecosystems. Sustainable resource use can only be achieved by reducing total resource use, encouraging technology innovation, initiating institutional reform and preparing region-specific development strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial parks have been adopted as one way to promote industrial development in China since the early 1980s. However, most of current performance evaluation indicators highlight the maximization of industrial yield, leading to both ecological degradation and environmental pollution due to intensive industrial activities. Therefore, it is critical to develop appropriate evaluation indicators so that industrial parks can move toward sustainable development. This paper aims to fill such a research gap by developing innovative emergy indicators. Kaya formula and index decomposition analysis (IDA) were integrated together in order to quantify the key factors influencing the sustainability of an industrial park. Tianjin Economic Development area (TEDA), the largest industrial park in terms of its economic scale in China, was chosen as one case study area for testing the related methods. The results show that during the period of 2006–2010 the sustainability of TEDA experienced a declining trend. From the Kaya formula and IDA analysis, indicators on economic efficiency of process, economic return on investment, renewable empower density and nonrenewable empower density were calculated. Such research findings provide valuable policy insights to the industrial park managers so that they can prepare appropriate development strategies for achieving sustainable development of their industrial parks by considering the local realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]