Evaluating Carbon-Emission Efficiency in China’s Construction Industry: An SBM-Model Analysis of Interprovincial Building Heating

Abstract

In the pursuit of China’s ambitious carbon neutrality goals, optimizing carbon-emission efficiency within the construction sector, a significant emitter, becomes critical. This study employs a super-Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model and a Tobit regression model to analyze buildings’ heating-related carbon emissions across China, considering urban population density, electricity usage, and building energy consumption and the influencing factors that cause differences in carbon-emission efficiency difference. The results of this study show that the average building carbon-emission efficiency of 30 provinces in China is 0.789; carbon-emission efficiency is 0.89 in the south, higher than 0.69 in the north. After excluding centralized heating emissions, the value of buildings’ carbon-emission efficiency in the northern provinces increases by 0.01, of which the buildings’ carbon-emission efficiency in Jilin Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region shows positive growth, respectively, by 0.12 and 0.17. In terms of influencing factors, there is a significant positive correlation between the scientific and technological levels, the regional economic scale, and carbon-emission efficiency; however, government intervention in the economy has a negative correlation with carbon-emission efficiency. Renewable energy utilization and green-policy adoption emerge as pivotal in enhancing efficiency. The contribution of this study is to underscore the necessity of fostering renewable energy, refining energy-consumption structures, and implementing green strategies to augment buildings’ heating-related carbon-emission efficiency.