Spatial characteristics and factors that influence the environmental efficiency of public buildings in China

Abstract The rapid development of the tertiary industry has enabled energy consumption by public buildings the fastest growing branch of China's construction industry. The operating stage has the biggest share in the perspective of whole life cycle analyses. To conserve energy and reduce emissions is a critical issue for the public building sector. This study employs the non-radial directional distance function and data envelopment analysis methods to estimate the environmental efficiency of the public building industries in 30 provincial administrative regions between 2010 and 2017. And the Moran index is used to explore its spatial distribution characteristics. Finally, the factors affecting environmental efficiency are analyzed using a spatial econometric model analysis. The results indicated that the environmental efficiency for the public building industries across China were generally low, whereas their spatial characteristics were high in the east and low in the west, and high in the south and low in the north. There are several kinds of measures that can promote environmental efficiency, such as increasing the proportion of tertiary industry, promoting gross domestic product per capita growth, increasing the proportion of electricity in terminal energy consumption, and attracting foreign direct investment. However, the increases in urban population may decrease environmental efficiency. Nevertheless, an obvious spatial spillover effect exists in the environmental efficiency of the public building sector.