Sustainable Development Based on Green GDP Accounting and Cloud Computing: A Case Study of Zhejiang Province

Abstract

Cloud computing is a supercomputing that integrates large-scale and scalable computing, storage, data, applications, and other distributed computing resources for collaborative work in the form of virtualization technology as the basis and the network as the carrier to provide infrastructure, platform, software, and other service’s model. Green GDP (GGDP) is an assessment indicator for regional sustainable development. Hence, the evaluation index on GGDP and greening of the national economic accounting system (SNA) are the hotspots of current ecological and economic studies. In the recent years, Zhejiang’s economy has achieved rapid development, and there are also problems of high input and high consumption of natural resources, thereby restricting its sustainable development. Based on the statistical data of Zhejiang Province during 2000–2017, the GGDP within the sustainable development context is calculated using the system of integrated environmental and economic accounting (SEEA). The results indicated the following: (1) The GGDP accounted for 79.29%–96.78% of Zhejiang's GDP during the study period, which showed volatility upward trend, resulting from the significant environmental protection and conservation of natural resources in the study area. But economic development was heavily dependent on resources, and the local government still strengthened the work of improving resources and environment. (2) The proportion of secondary industry in Zhejiang Province fluctuated downwards during the period of 2000–2017, and the tertiary industry showed a volatility upward trend, which exceeded the proportion of the secondary industry, indicating that Zhejiang Province is from an industry-led economy to a service-oriented economy change. (3) The GGDP of Zhejiang Province accounted for the highest proportion of GDP in 2008, resulting from the result of a combination of relevant national policies and international competitions.