ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1517645
This article is part of the Research TopicClimate Risk and Green and Low-Carbon Transformation: Economic Impact and Policy ResponseView all 25 articles
Total factor carbon emission productivity in China's manufacturing industry: A study considering indirect carbon emissions
Provisionally accepted
Zhijie Hao1*
Xiaotian Wang2- 1Jiangsu Open University, Nanjing, China
- 2Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
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Considering the backdrop of indirect carbon emissions, this paper aims to examine the patterns and influencing factors of total factor carbon emission productivity (TFCEP) in China's manufacturing sub-sectors and to propose policy recommendations for improving carbon emission performance. Based on empirical data of China's manufacturing industry from 2005 to 2020 (the 11th Five-Year Plan (FYP) to the 13th FYP), this paper combines the direct and indirect carbon emissions and presents a more comprehensive formula for calculating sectoral CO 2 emissions. The global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) productivity index is used to calculate TFCEP, followed by an analysis of influencing factors using a mixed regression model. Despite an average annual increase of 3.4% in the TFCEP of the overall manufacturing sector, contributing 34.7% to output growth, a comparative analysis indicates a decline in the sector's overall TFCEP across the three FYPs. The TFCEP decomposition index of the manufacturing sub-sectors shows industry heterogeneity. Empirical analysis have proved that technological innovation and environmental regulatory policies are the most effective means to enhance TFCEP and may serve as the primary leverage to achieve the "dual-carbon" goals. The level of electrification is innovatively introduced to characterize the energy structure, and its relationship with TFCEP exhibits an inverted U-shaped curve. This finding suggests that electrification policies should be tailored to the specific electrification stage of each industry.
Keywords: manufacturing, indirect CO 2 emissions, TFCEP, GML index, Instrumental variable method, Inverted U-shaped curve
Received: 26 Oct 2024; Accepted: 19 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hao and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhijie Hao, Jiangsu Open University, Nanjing, China
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