Evaluating Green Growth Practices: Empirical Evidence from China

Green growth has been identified as an effective way to foster economic growth and address environmental problems, and is practised in various countries globally. However, there remain several obstacles and difficulties to evaluating green growth practices in theory, as there is no proper evaluation framework. To bridge this gap, a universal and comprehensive evaluation indicator system for green growth is built based on improving the plan-do-check-action (PDCA) cycle method, and then is applied to study China's green growth practices by using a hybrid method combining fuzzy set theory and the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method. The influences and interrelationships of sub-practices are determined, and a visual analysis is conducted to evaluate their relationships. The findings reveal that five sub-practices were grouped into a set of causes. Of these, high-level leadership (G1) is the largest influencing factor, and its support and consideration should be prioritized. The other 10 sub-practices are classified as a set of effects. Of this set, a well-governed and effective institutional arrangement (G5) is the most influential practice restricting China's green growth. Additionally, this paper also finds that communicating benefits with stakeholders (G7) is strongly related to other sub-practices, and is the top factor contributing to the success of China's green growth strategy. This study contributes not only to the literature on green growth practices in an emerging economy but also to giving decision-makers and researchers inside and outside China valuable inspiration and references for improving the performance of green growth practices. Copyright (C) 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment