Urban green total factor energy efficiency and its decomposition under a multidimensional heterogeneity framework: a case study of the Yellow River Basin, China

Assessing and monitoring the green total factor energy efficiency (GTFEE) of cities while considering technology heterogeneity is crucial for the development of energy-conservation and emission-reduction policies. Considering that the heterogeneity of production technologies encompasses several dimensions, this paper proposes a 3E3S (Economy-Environment-Energy-Society-Science-Space) heterogeneity framework and integrates it with the improved meta-frontier global SBM-undesirable to analyze GTFEE and its decomposition. Empirical analysis of cities in the Yellow River Basin of China (YRBC) highlights the following: (1) The 3E3S heterogeneity framework facilitates the classification of all cities into three distinct groups, a finding that contrasts significantly with previous outcomes documented in the literature that relied solely on criteria such as geographic location. (2) The three groups identified under the meta-frontier exhibit substantial energy-saving potentials of 24.49%, 35.17%, and 52.46%, respectively. Additionally, there are spatiotemporal variations in GTFEE, with cities located in the central part of YRBC, particularly those in Shanxi province, demonstrating poor GTFEE performance. (3) The decomposition analysis of GTFEE indicates that technological progress plays a pivotal role in enhancing GTFEE on the whole, albeit with varying approaches for improving GTFEE depending on individual cities.