Analysis of circular economy of Liaoning Province based on eco-efficiency

Eco-efficiency and circular economy are complement for each other.They have much in common in methodology,development goals,guiding ideology and implementation level.Eco-efficiency evaluation is an important content of regional circular economy.As current empirical research on the combination of eco-efficiency and circular economy is scarce,this paper takes eco-efficiency theory as the basis and makes a comprehensive measurement on the circular economy of Liaoning Province—the earliest experimental province that adopted circular economy in China.Liaoning,as one of the old industrial bases in northeastern China,its industrial foundation is solid,but environment pollution is serious.So,Liaoning Province is typical to be selected as the research object.Firstly,according to the data of Liaoning Province from 1990 to 2008 and using TOPSIS method which is based on Entropy weight,we choose two indicator categories of resource consumption and environment quality to calculate the resource efficiency,environmental efficiency and eco-efficiency of Liaoning Province during 19 years.Secondly,taking resource efficiency and environment efficiency as indicators and using eco-efficiency model,Liaoning Province economic development mode is measured.It is discovered that during the 19 years,Liaoning Province has experienced the changes of economic development mode from material traditional mode(1990—1992) to end-of-pipe treatment mode(1993—2002) to material decreasing circular mode(2003—2008).It is mainly manifested in the aspects of decrease in resource consumption,increase in resource recycling rate,start of clean production and decrease of industrial waste,etc.The result proves that Liaoning has stepped in the circular economic development orbit formed by end-of-pipe treatment mode.Its economic development mode makes a comparatively big leap and eco-efficiency continues to increase.Thirdly,taking the social service amount,and eco-efficiency as indicators and circular economic model as measurement,the state of circular economic development in Liaoning Province is comprehensively evaluated.It is found that the whole situation of circular economy is circularly stronger,i.e.the economy is developing while the environment pressure is decreasing.Specifically,the ecological efficiency of Liaoning Province has experienced two significant drops in year 1992 and 1996 respectively.In the two years,Liaoning Province was in the weakened state of circular economy,that is,consumption rate of resources and environment was faster than improvement of social service amount.The eco-efficiency of Liaoning slid slightly during years from 1999 to 2003 while it was in the circularity reinforcement state of circular economy which means social service amount was increasing and the load of resources and environment was increasing as well.This research proves that Liaoning Province has got a significant achievement after experimental implement of the circular economy since 2002,and circular economic reform has shown evident effect,which sets a good example for the whole country,especially for Northeast China to develop circular economy and take on the new-type of industrialization.