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Ecological sustainability of the Chinese economy is vital for China as well as for the world. By integrating environmental input-output analysis, emergy theory, and a complex network model into one framework, this paper explores Chinese sectoral ecological sustainability with the most recent 2012 input-output table. The results show that there are significant differences in emergy intensities among sectors. The non-metal mining sector is the most emergy-intensive sector at 6.06E+17 sej/10000 Yuan, followed by the metal mining sector. Additionally, output connections have a positive impact on the emergy yield ratio, input connections exert a negative impact on the emergy yield ratio, and PageRank centrality has a positive effect on the environmental loading ratio. This paper updates the Chinese sectoral emergy assessment, identifies key sectors in the Chinese ecological network, and analyzes the impact of network indicators on sectoral emergy performance. These analyses will be useful in updating the guide for adjusting industrial structure in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An industrial park is characterized as a cluster of industries designed to meet compatible demands of different economic organizations within one location, which is pivotal to drive the regional economic growth of developing countries. The concentrated industrial activities inevitably result in substantial resource consumption and corresponding environmental emissions. Environmental auditing, which is used for the checking and verification of environmental performance, is an effective tool for investigating environmental emissions and resource consumption status and alleviation potential in industrial parks. As one of the environmental auditing technologies, emergy analysis, which provides a systematic approach in identifying the balance between socioeconomic development and natural environment, is employed in this paper. Specifically, a ternary emergetic environmental performance auditing framework was proposed to evaluate the behavior (preliminary work), ecological-economic efficiency (Level 1), environmental impact (Level 2), and mitigation effect (Level 3) of a typical industrial park in Beijing. The result showed that the concerned industrial park mainly depends on labor and service inputs and has a relatively high economic efficiency. However, the large dependence on purchased emergy exerted great pressure on the resource and environment, and affect the stability of the industrial park. The proposed framework may help reveal the value that free environmental services and resources offer to a specific system and thus can be complementary to the existing environmental performance auditing tools. [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]

Abstract: This paper investigates the challenges and opportunities of how firms and organizations can and will be able to strike a better balance between economic growth and environmental stewardship in the context of China’s emerging ‘circular economy’ policy paradigm and based on ecological modernization theoretic approaches. Based on three company case studies in the information technology and electronic industries in China, we identify and demonstrate how a blended business and environmental value can be created from adopting a sustainable supply chain management approach. The adoption of a sustainable supply chain management approach is rapidly becoming a key business challenge and opportunity in China and other large emerging economies around the world, where our greatest environmental management challenges currently reside and will continue to exist for many years to come. The value creation framework proposed in research focuses on evaluating three case study companies who appear in various stages of an electronic industry supply chain. Value creation within a supply chain can provide the impetus for organizations to adopt circular economy, sustainable supply chain practices, for competitive reasons. In addition, we describe how a value proposition can be evaluated at two levels of analysis, a more specific micro-level and a more general meso-level of analysis. The four major business value dimensions include cost reduction, revenue generation, resiliency, and legitimacy and image. The initial findings are that a variety of opportunities exist for electronic firms in emerging and developing countries, while results from this study provide an important scholarly foundation to develop and refine sustainable supply chain management practices in emerging and developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To mitigate the negative impacts of industrial production the Chinese government initiated the eco-industrial parks programme in 2001. Enterprises within eco-industrial parks seek to reduce resource consumption and waste/pollution generation by reusing and recycling material and energy by-products. However, the actual sustainability outcomes of eco-industrial parks development and operation are still not clearly known. The aim of this paper is to provide a critical synthesis of the current evidence about the key institutional aspects, sustainability impacts, and implementation challenges related to eco-industrial parks development and operation through an institutional analysis based on the key policy documents and an extensive narrative-based review of the peer-reviewed literature. The results suggest that many stakeholders are involved in eco-industrial parks development and operation, with the main drivers of eco-industrial parks development anchored on the desire to sustain economic momentum without overburdening the environment, and the effort to reduce production costs and maintain economic competitiveness. However, eco-industrial parks development and operation has a series of positive and negative economic and environmental impacts, with some of the latter remaining rather pronounced, which suggests that good production practices do not often translate to positive environmental outcomes. There is practically negligible knowledge about the possible social impacts of eco-industrial parks, possibly due to their omissions from current standards. Some of the main challenges of the effective implementation of the eco-industrial parks programme include the (a) gaps of (and lack of adherence to) eco-industrial parks guidelines and standards, (b) disjoint between eco-industrial parks planning and implementation, (c) misconception and manipulation of key eco-industrial parks concepts, (d) limited scale of eco-industrial parks implementation, and (e) knowledge gaps and non-comprehensive assessment frameworks. Image 1 • Institutional analysis and literature review to study China's Eco-Industrial Parks. • The drivers of the programme are mainly economic in nature. • Eco-industrial parks have multiple economic, environmental, and social impacts. • Eco-Industrial parks do not always have better performance than conventional parks. • Gaps in knowledge and assessment frameworks due to omissions in standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]