Eco-efficiency assessment under natural and managerial disposability: an empirical application for Chilean water companies

Getting a good understanding regarding the economic and environmental performance of water utilities is of great importance to achieve the goal of an efficient and sustainable industry. In this study, we apply the range adjusted measure (RAM) data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to evaluate the integrated (production and environmental) efficiency of several water utilities located in Chile. Integrated efficiency is evaluated using the concepts of natural and managerial disposability. This approach further allows us to quantify the contribution of each input and undesirable product on efficiency scores. The results highlighted that the Chilean water industry showed high levels of production and environmental efficiency over time. Under natural disposability, water utilities could control production costs to reduce water leakage and unplanned water supply interruptions by 3.3% on average. Under managerial disposability, water utilities could further cut down undesirable outputs by 1.4% on average by adopting best managerial practices. On average, potential savings in operating costs, employment, water leakage, and unplanned water supply interruptions were higher for concessionary utilities as they showed slightly lower efficiency scores than full private utilities.

Regional unified environmental efficiency of China: a non-separable hybrid measure under natural and managerial disposability

Attributing to the booming industry, China has made huge economic achievements during recent decades/years. However, the issue of energy and environment has challenged the sustainable development of the industry a lot in China. Investigating the non-separable relationship among energy, capital, and CO₂ emission under natural and managerial disposability, this paper proposes two hybrid measure approaches to measure unified environmental efficiency of industry in China during 2011-2016. Besides, production efficiency, emission efficiency, damage to scale, and return to scale of 30 regions in China are calculated and recognized. The results show that (1) unified environmental efficiency of Chinese industry under natural disposability is higher than that under managerial disposability in early few years, but they are close to each other finally. (2) Unified environmental efficiency gaps among regions under natural disposability are wider than those under managerial disposability. Increasing capital investment and improving technology can help reduce efficiency gaps among regions. (3) It is available to increase production efficiency and reduce CO₂ emission by cutting down energy consumption for most regions; insufficient capital investment and poor production technology cause the decreasing return to scale and production efficiency.