Evaluation of the Green Innovation Efficiency of Chinese Industrial Enterprises: Research Based on the Three-Stage Chain Network SBM Model

Abstract

Green innovation is an important capability for an enterprise’s sustainable development. Evaluating the green innovation efficiency of China’s industrial enterprises can greatly affect its improvement. Considering the existing research results of green innovation efficiency evaluation, this paper added the impact of environmental factors in the technology industrialization stage. Various negative environmental externality indicators produced by industrial enterprise activities were incorporated into the undesired output, and an index system and model were constructed for evaluating the green innovation efficiency of China’s industrial enterprises. Combined with the actual data, a three-stage chain network SBM (slack-based measure) model was used to dynamically evaluate and analyze the industrial enterprises in 29 Chinese provinces. The results show that the overall efficiency of green innovation in China’s industrial enterprises has an upward trend, and the rise fluctuates during the technological development, achievement transformation, and industrialization stages. In the three major regions of China, industrial enterprises in the eastern area have the highest green innovation efficiency, and the industrial enterprises in the west and central regions have lower efficiencies. Based on the evaluation results, the corresponding countermeasures are proposed.