An Evaluation Model for the Coordinated Development of a Circular Economy in China and Its Application to Energy-intensive Industries

Energy-intensive industries (EIIs) are fundamental to the industrial development of China and are also the key industries of a circular economic infrastructure. It is worth paying attention to the coordinated development of a circular economy using EIIs due to the present interrelationship among EIIs. It is related to the optimization and comprehensive performance improvement of a circular economy. Based on the perspective of order parameter, this study uses economic and environmental subsystems to establish an evaluation model that examines the coordinated development of a circular economy within six main EIIs and an EII cluster from 2006 to 2011 in China. The result shows that the level of coordinated development in a circular economy among six EIIs differs and the level of coordinated development of circular economy among the EII cluster lags behind that of each EII examined. It also shows that the outside coordinated degree of EIIs is lower than the inside coordinated degree of each EII.