Environmental Assessment on Energy and Sustainability by Data Envelopment Analysis

PREFACE

Global warming and climate change are now a very serious issue around the world. The climate change problem, due to global warming, implies an increase in average global temperature regarding air, sea and land. Natural events and economic activities, including industrial developments and business activities, contribute to the increase in average global temperature. Such a climate change is primarily caused by an increase in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. In addition, we are now facing various environmental difficulties, such as how to handle nuclear and industrial wastes, all of which are byproducts of our economic and industrial developments.

To combat the environmental issues, this book discusses the importance of both economic success and environmental protection for sustainability enhancement. The underlying philosophy of this book is that we need to develop eco‐technology innovation and managerial challenges to support a progress for reducing an amount of greenhouse gas emissions. In challenging toward such a research direction, this book proposes a new use of “data envelopment analysis (DEA),” as a holistic approach, to assess various aspects concerning sustainability development. In the sense, the new methodology proposed in this book is referred to as “DEA environmental assessment.”

An important feature of this book is that it focuses upon “energy sectors” because they are closely associated with environmental problems. Therefore, this book is not interested ...