Next, the results obtained by both methods will be analyzed for each of the countries of the study carried out and for each of the years of the period studied.
Once this comparison is made, a graphic representation with color maps will be made to further clarify environmental efficiency throughout the European Union. Once done, the average of both methods will be calculated for all countries in order to obtain general results.
Finally, a comparison of the current situation will be made with the study from 2005 to 2012 in order to understand how the situation has evolved over the decade and the improved analysis method (MAM) will be applied in order to be able to explain the most particular cases of the results obtained.
4.1. Study of input and output data
Before analyzing environmental efficiency, some of the input and output data have also been analyzed to comment on the peculiarities of the different countries throughout the period.
The data on electricity generation from coal show that Poland is the country that uses this source in the greatest proportion to cover electricity demand, being in 2013 when it reaches a maximum of 85%.
Power generation from oil is monopolized by Malta (until 2015) and Cyprus, producing up to 98% and 90% of electricity from said source, respectively. It is true that Malta began to reduce its use in 2017 as it incorporated natural gas into its energy mix.
As for obtaining electricity from nuclear energy, France is the country that uses this source the most to cover its electricity demand around 70 to 80%. The following countries that touch 50% of the demand with this source are Slovakia, Hungary and Belgium.
Other input data includes the number of vehicles that use fossil fuels. Germany has more than 5 million.
While Belgium and Italy accompany Germany as the countries with the highest number of vehicles, Malta is the country with the lowest number of them.
With regard to economic indicators that will be used as desired outputs, we have the following:
- GDP: the highest is Germany with about €3,479,367 million in 2019 and the lowest is Malta with a minimum of €73,645 million in 2012.
- Per capita income: the highest value is presented by Luxembourg with a maximum value of €101,760 in the year 2020 and the lowest value corresponds to Bulgaria with €5,780 in the year 2012.
Finishing with the analysis of the data, it is necessary to observe the environmental indicators that correspond to the undesirable outputs used in the calculation methods.
- CO2 emissions: downward trend with Germany being the country with the highest number of emissions (823,069 kts) and Malta the country with the least (1,346 kts).
- CH4 emissions: the countries to highlight are France with a maximum value of 64,940 equivalent kts of CO 2 in 2012 and Malta with a minimum value in 2013 of 190 equivalent kts of CO2.
4.2. Comparison between both methods.
Once all the calculations have been completed, the values obtained by both method 1 and method 2 will be shared in a series of tables (Table 7, Table 8 and Table 9)
The first observation that draws attention is that the values obtained by method 2 are lower than those obtained by method 1. This is mainly due to the fact that more weight has been given to methane emissions, causing said undesirable output causes a decrease in the environmental efficiency of the country. A clear example is the case of Lithuania.
To conclude this subsection, the mean values of environmental efficiency of both methods are included in a table in order to definitively compare them with each other (Table 10).
4.3. Classification criteria for eco-efficiency
One way to decide which countries are more eco-efficient than others is by using a simple and effective classification. For this, the criterion used in the previous study “Measurement of environment efficiency in the countries of the European Union with the enhanced data environment analysis method (DEA) during the period 2005-2012” since it is consistent with the criteria that are being used and that were already accepted at the time.
The classification criteria are as follows:
- Excellent eco-efficiency: all values between 0.9999 and 1. Will be assigned a green color.
- Good eco-efficiency: range between 0.8 and 0.9999. It will be assigned a yellow color.
- Average eco-efficiency: range between 0.5 and 0.79 represented with an orange color.
- Poor or improvable eco-efficiency: with a red color and a range between 0 and 0.49.
Thus, it is the case that by method 1 it can be concluded that of the 27 countries studied in the given period of time, 13 countries have excellent environmental efficiency compared to the others, another 2 have good efficiency, 6 of them are average and another 6 can improve.
As can be seen, countries like Germany, Italy or France have excellent environmental efficiency compared to Greece, Romania or Hungary whose environmental efficiency can be improved compared to the others.
Now, when the method is changed, it can be seen that of the 27 countries only 9 they have an excellent eco-efficiency when before there were 13. Two of them have a good eco-efficiency as before, 6 remain within the average as before but now we have 10 countries within the category of poor or improvable eco-efficiency.
Commenting on the most significant between both methods we have.
- Malta, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Italy, France and Luxembourg remain in an excellent eco-efficiency. Belgium remains within a good eco-efficiency. Spain, Finland and Cyprus continue to maintain an average eco-efficiency and Greece, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria continue to have an eco-efficiency that could be improved.
- Latvia moves from having excellent eco-efficiency to medium eco-efficiency.
- Lithuania goes from having an excellent eco-efficiency to one that could be improved.
- Ireland goes from excellent to good eco-efficiency.
- Poland goes from excellent to average eco-efficiency.
- Estonia goes from having a good to a medium eco-efficiency.
- Croatia, Slovenia and Portugal go from having an average eco-efficiency to an improvable one.
In conclusion, the number of countries that had excellent and good eco-efficiency has been reduced, while those with average eco-efficiency remain the same. They have also increased the number of countries with an eco-efficiency that can be improve
Once the classification was done, we wanted to use a table with colors to make the classification of the countries by both methods even more visual (Table 11). In addition to the table, we wanted to make use of a map of Europe in order to represent the countries with the colors of the category to which they belong by both methods.
If we look closely (Figure 1) we can see that the countries with the best environmental efficiency are those located in the center of Europe, while those with poor or improvable efficiency are located more in the southeastern part of Europe. As for the countries that present a medium and good environmental efficiency, they are distributed in a less uniform way since they are distributed on the periphery and one or another more in the center. With method 2 (Figure 2), it can be reaffirmed that the trend is very similar to that of method 1, showing that in this case there are more countries with improvable environmental efficiency. The countries with an improvable environmental efficiency are also on the periphery such as Portugal or even to the north as is the case of Lithuania.
4.4. Analysis of environmental efficiency for each of the countries of the European Union
In order to try to explain the environmental efficiency results obtained, we have wanted to comment on what happens in each of the countries throughout the period studied.
Germany, which has excellent eco-efficiency, has very high economic indicators (higher GDP in the EU) that help counteract the fact that it is one of the countries that emits the most GHG emissions. If it weren't for its economic indicators, we would be talking about a country with low eco-efficiency. The main solution is to reduce these emissions by reducing, above all, the use of coal (Germany is the first country in the EU that imports the most coal) or start using more electric vehicles.
Austria also presents an excellent eco-efficiency by both methods thanks to the fact that it has a high GDP and GHG emissions that are not so high due to its energy policy and to the fact that it has strongly opted for hydroelectricity.
Belgium also has a high eco-efficiency but does not maintain excellence (Figure 4) since, although its economic indicators are high (similar to Austria), it still has to reduce its GHG emissions.
Bulgaria is one of the countries with improvable eco-efficiency that still uses a lot of coal as a reserve source to produce electricity and being one of the poorest countries in terms of GDP does not help improve these values.
The case of Cyprus is peculiar because it presents an excellent eco-efficiency in the first years (Figure 5) to later fall to an improvable one, placing it within the medium category. The indicators
Their economic costs are generally low compared to other countries and their emissions could drop further as Cyprus is still heavily dependent on oil as a source of energy (by 2020 oil-based power generation is over 85%).
Croatia goes from having an average environmental efficiency to an improvable one when changing methods. In 2017, it presented excellent eco-efficiency as a reward for its slow economic growth (Figure 5) Its GDP, for example, is greater than that of Cyprus, but it still has to reduce its emissions a lot to increase eco-efficiency. It still has to improve its energy policy to bet on renewable sources and improve its economic parameters to increase said eco-efficiency.
Denmark is one of the countries with excellent eco-efficiency for both methods. It has been reducing its dependence on coal and oil throughout the period while at the same time betting on renewable sources. Its economic indicators are also high and help it achieve excellent eco-efficiency.
Slovakia has a low eco-efficiency mainly due to its low economic indicators and to the fact that it has been reducing its dependence on coal and oil while continuing to bet on nuclear energy.
The case of Slovenia also makes it have a low eco-efficiency (medium to improvable when changing methods) due to its low economic indicators. It still relies on sources like coal while still making use of nuclear power.
Spain is a country that presents an average environmental efficiency. Despite having been betting on renewable energies, it still has high emissions that, accompanied by very high economic indicators, end up harming it and placing it in a category that is not too good for what is expected of it.
Estonia, good and medium eco-efficiency according to the method, has been gradually eliminating coal as its source for electricity, just like oil. In most of the period, method 1 maintains excellence (Figure 4), although slow economic growth harms it. Nuclear power has been non-existent in the country. Estonia is penalized from the point of view of environmental efficiency by economic parameters since GDP and per capita income are low compared to other countries.
Finland is in the medium category. According to the data used in this project, Finland is a country whose electricity does not come largely from coal and oil, also reducing over time. Nuclear energy continues to be present at an average of 33%, while other energy sources are being used. The low values of GDP accompanied by emissions that are around the average mean that it has a value of average environmental efficiency when it could be excellent if the GDP were to increase with respect to its current value.
France is one of those countries that has bet the most in terms of energy on that of nuclear origin since it provides an average of 70% of the country's electricity while coal and oil continue to lose weight. It is one of the countries that has excellent environmental eco-efficiency since it has the 2nd highest GDP in the European Union as it shows a downward trend in terms of GHG emissions, but it has the highest values in the European Union in terms of emissions. of methane is concerned since after transport, agriculture influences second place in pollution. To continue increasing these efficiency values or for France to maintain them, it would be necessary to gradually reduce these emissions while maintaining or improving the country's GDP.
Greeceit is one of those countries whose environmental efficiency is very close to the average, but ends up being in the category of improvable by a few tenths. The country still uses energy sources such as coal and oil to produce electricity, but with a downward trend over the years of coal use. The polluting emissions in Greece are higher than those that occur, for example, in Denmark and this, together with the fact that it has one of the lowest GDPs in the European Union, means that its eco-efficiency drops to low values.
Environmental efficiency in Hungary is also at levels that could be improved as they are quite low (below 30%). The production of electricity from coal and oil sources shows a downward trend in the country. Hungary continues to bet on nuclear energy since in the period studied its use to produce electricity is around 45-50%. Despite this, Hungary is disadvantaged by having a lower per capita income and GDP than countries like Greece.
In IrelandThere are very good environmental efficiency values since, while by method 1 it is considered to be excellent, by method 2 it is good because the weight of methane emissions makes it reduce a little and it is especially in the year 2012 (Figure 4) also because of the financial crisis that the country was experiencing. Ireland has a strong economy, standing out for ending the period studied as the country with the second highest per capita income (the industrial production index increased in 2020) while most countries suffered a recession in growth. That the environmental efficiency goes down to good in method 2 is due to the methane emissions that have them a little high and, if reduced, it would have a more than excellent eco-efficiency.
Italy, with excellent eco-efficiency, has been reducing the use of oil and coal for electricity over the decade while promoting other energies while never using nuclear power. Italy has a fairly high GDP that is offset by polluting emissions that are also high.
Latvia has excellent eco-efficiency by method 1 while by method 2 it is placed in the medium eco-efficiency category. Latvia's GDP is not too high, but having lower polluting emissions makes it have high values of environmental efficiency. It is true that, by giving more weight to methane emissions, they lower the country's environmental efficiency to the average level, but without going below 70%.
LithuaniaIt is a strange case because it goes from having an excellent environmental eco-efficiency to one that could be improved when we change the method and give more weight to methane emissions. Emissions are not as high as those of other countries, but when methane is considered with more weight, it means that not being a country with a very high per capita income and GDP, efficiency declines. Lithuania can solve this problem by mainly reducing polluting methane emissions and improving the economy to counteract the problem.
Luxembourg has excellent eco-efficiency by both methods since its energy does not come from sources such as coal or oil, but will originate from renewable sources that result in not too high emissions. In addition, its GDP and high per capita income make it an excellent country from an environmental point of view.
Malta has excellent environmental efficiency by both methods as it has an upward per capita income higher even than countries like Hungary or Latvia. To this we must add that, although Malta started at the beginning of the study period as a country whose electricity came mainly from oil, it has been reducing it to almost 3% in 2020. This translates into less greenhouse gas emissions with the passage of time and an improvement, therefore, of environmental efficiency.
The Netherlands has high economic indicators that, accompanied by electricity production that ceases to depend over time on energy sources such as coal or oil (which translates into a reduction in GHG emissions), allow the country to have an excellent environmental efficiency compared to other countries of the European Union.
PolandIt has a medium environmental efficiency by method 2 while by method 1 it is considered excellent. Poland still gets part of its electricity production from sources such as coal (mostly) and oil. Although its trend has been decreasing over time, it can be seen that CO2 and CH4 emissions are high. These emissions are offset by a high GDP, which means that eco-efficiency cannot be improved, since at the time that more weight is given to methane emissions, the eco-efficiency of the country suffers a decrease.
PortugalIt has an environmental efficiency between medium and improvable by both methods, marking a constant trend by method 1 with exceptions in 2012, 2019 and 2020 (Figure 5) Portugal has been reducing its electricity production from coal and oil over the years. Despite reducing these energy sources, the emissions do not experience a very pronounced decline because Portugal has a fleet of very high vehicles that contribute to them. That the country's economic indicators (GDP and per capita income) are not too high help to ensure that the decline in efficiency does not stop.
The country of Czech Republicpresents a fairly low environmental efficiency with both methods. The country still uses coal to produce electricity despite the fact that it has been reduced over the years while it is committed to nuclear energy since it reaches 36% of production in 2020. GDP and per capita income are not very high values if not that they remain a little below the average of the European Union. In addition to this, GHG emissions are high and this also affects environmental efficiency to continue to decline. The perfect solution for this country is to continue reducing GHG emissions while the economy continues to improve.
Romaniapresents a case similar to that of the Czech Republic since its environmental efficiency is quite low, that is, it could be improved. It is a country that still depends on coal to produce electricity but that shows a downward trend. In this case, CO2 emissions are lower than those of the Czech Republic, but CH4 emissions are higher. Regarding the economic indicators, both GDP and per capita income, are not very high in this case and cause environmental eco-efficiency to drop to very small values numerically.
Swedenif it has excellent environmental eco-efficiency. It is a country that has coal in disuse for the production of electricity as well as oil while it continues to maintain nuclear energy for the production of electricity. It has a high per capita income and a GDP within the average which, together with low GHG emissions, allows it to have high efficiency values.
For the countries that remain within the category of improvable environmental efficiency, some peculiarities can be commented on by observing Figure 6:
- 2014 : Countries with a downward trend show excellent eco-efficiency such as Greece, Lithuania and Slovenia for method 2, mainly due to a decrease in emissions.
- 2019 and 2020: minimum emissions are marked (in 2020 especially due to the COVID pandemic) as is the case with Romania, which also experiences an increase in economic indicators.
- 2012 and 2017: Portugal and Croatia set maximums these years.
4.5. Unification of methods: medium environmental efficiency
Once the results have been obtained by both methods, it is necessary to unify both in order to have a definitive classification of the 27 countries of the European Union in terms of environmental efficiency. The results will be represented in Table 12.
As can be seen, those with excellent environmental efficiency are Malta, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, France and Luxembourg. Ireland, Belgium and Latvia have somewhat lower values and are in the good eco-efficiency category.
The average values are occupied by Poland, Finland, Spain, Estonia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Portugal, while the lowest values and whose eco-efficiency must be improved are Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.
4.6 Obtaining the average environmental efficiency of the European Union.
After having carried out the calculations and drawing the first conclusions for each of the countries of the European Union, it has been considered necessary to mention all of these 27 countries to determine in which category of environmental efficiency it has been moving.
Basically, the average of all the countries has been obtained by each of the two methods in order to obtain the average in each of the years and, of course, the total average of the European Union in that period of 8 years.
As can be seen in Table 13, the evolution of the values for method 1 show that it has practically remained close to the category classified as good, but consolidating in the average. As for method 2, there are no doubts and it can be clearly seen that the tendency is to stay in the category of medium environmental efficiency.
The total average in this period places the environmental efficiency of the European Union in the medium category with a value of 0.69.
Observing the data, it is the year 2014 in which the largest number of countries we find an eco-efficiency
Excellent. This is explained by analyzing the context of the European Union:
- Industrial production index: increased by almost 2% after going through several years of decline due to the economic crisis that hit a large part of the countries of the continent.
- The economic indicators (GDP and per capita income) carried out a growth of 2.3% and 2.19% with respect to 2013, which began to be a sign that the economic recovery of the continent was beginning to be a reality.
- Finally, with regard to GHG emissions (methane and carbon dioxide), there was a decrease of up to almost 5% compared to 2013 for CO 2 and 1.5% for methane.
In 2020, by contrast, it was the year with the fewest countries in the excellent eco-efficiency category as the industrial production index fell by as much as 5% and economic indicators fell by 4.5%. It was of little use that minimum GHG emissions were reached.
4.7 Enhanced Analysis (MAM)
Continuing with the analysis carried out, the values obtained serve to have an idea of what affects eco-efficiency, but it is true that it is not possible to clearly differentiate how some indicators affect it and it happens that cases such as that of Lithuania appear (Figure 8) that goes from having an excellent eco-efficiency by method 1 to having an improvable eco-efficiency by method 2.
In view of the results obtained, an attempt has been made to explain by studying the evolution of the data available, but it cannot be explained since throughout the period methane emissions decrease at the same time as economic indicators. as the GDP are increasing throughout this period.
As a result of this, it is necessary to analyze the results in another way that allows skewing the values in order to save the disparate differences that exist between some countries, which is why it is necessary to use the improved analysis method (MAM).
In the first place, the comparison will be made with the average environmental efficiency obtained by both methods in the period studied and for each of the countries of the European Union with the average GDP in said period for each of these countries (Figure 9). It can be seen that there are countries that have an eco-efficiency very similar to 1, which is the highest value, while they differ in their average GDP, as is the case of Malta, Denmark and Germany, to give some examples. In addition, it can be clearly seen that Germany has the highest GDP in the entire European Union while Spain is the country with the 4th highest GDP and an eco-efficiency around the average that places it in the fifteenth position.
With these comparisons, the aim is to establish a hierarchical order as precise as possible, exposing other indicators such as per capita income and undesirable outputs related to methane and carbon dioxide emissions.
Regarding the comparison with per capita income (Figure 10), it can be noted that Luxembourg is the country with the highest income and excellent eco-efficiency when the second country with the highest income is Ireland and it is the 10th most eco-efficient country. which makes it be placed within the category of good eco-efficiency.
The case of Cyprus and Malta is curious since both have a fairly similar income but while Malta is the most eco-efficient country, it turns out that Cyprus has an average eco-efficiency that places it in 18th place.
Observing the figures that compare eco-efficiency with GHG (Figure 11 and Figure 12) it can be seen that there are countries like Germany and France that are the ones that emit the most GHG and even so their eco-efficiency is not affected. This is due to the fact that they are also the countries with the highest GDP in the European Union and, therefore, allow us to highlight a positive relationship between them because they are acting more efficiently than all the neighboring countries.
With regard to Spain, it can be clearly seen that it is the 4th country with the most methane emissions and the 5th with the most carbon dioxide emissions, which, in terms of GDP, is also in 4th place. This greatly affects its eco-efficiency since it places it around the average of all the countries of the European Union.
As can be seen, the countries that have a fairly low eco-efficiency do not share a large amount of emissions since they are not acting in the most efficient way possible.
If the graph that compares eco-efficiency with methane emissions is carefully observed and we look specifically at the case of Lituania, it can be explained that this amount of methane compared to the other countries, as it has more weight than CO2 emissions, ends up affect its eco-efficiency. In addition, it negatively affects its efficiency even more since Lithuania's GDP. If we look at the graph that compares eco-efficiency with GDP, it can be seen that Lithuania has a very low value compared to other countries in the European Union.
As can be seen in Figure 13, the relationship between GDP and CO2 emissions is positive because the countries with the highest GDP are also those with the highest carbon dioxide emissions, with Germany, France and Italy being the countries with the highest GDP. and emissions have. Spain, the Netherlands and Poland are in a rather intermediate zone while all the others are already in the lowest zone.
Of the intermediate zone, it is curious that the Netherlands is already the one with the highest efficiency, because Spain, which is also in the zone, has greater and more polluting emissions and this ends up harming its eco-efficiency. In addition, there is the case of countries that, although their emissions are low, show that they do not present an optimal situation because they are countries that are not as industrialized and, therefore, cannot have optimal environmental efficiency as other countries of the Union. European.
4.8 Comparison between the period 2005-2012 and 2012-2020
The idea of this section is to make a comparison between the current study and the one carried out in the article “Measurement of environment efficiency in the countries of the European Union with the enhanced data environment analysis method (DEA) during the period 2005-2012” (Hermoso-Orzáez et al., 2020)to find out how eco-efficiency has changed in both periods and have a broader understanding of what has happened in these 15 years. It must be taken into account that the main caveat is that the United Kingdom was included in the previous study since it was part of the European Union at that time and, therefore, would have influenced the general eco-efficiency of the European Union.
The first conclusion (Figure 14) that can be seen between both periods is that there are more countries that have experienced a decrease in their eco-efficiency than those that have experienced an increase. There are also, of course, countries where it has been maintained.
It is curious to note that there are no countries that have achieved excellent relative environmental efficiency over the years, but those that already had it, such as Germany, Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands and Sweden, continue to maintain it in the new period studied.
On the other hand, there are countries that have increased their eco-efficiency, such as Estonia, Finland, Ireland and Latvia. The most striking case is that of Ireland, since it was on the borderline between good and medium eco-efficiency and has managed to position itself close to excellence due to its continuous improvement over the years in terms of GDP and emissions.
Among the rest of the countries that experience a decrease in their efficiency values, we find some quite curious cases such as Cyprus, since it goes from having almost excellent environmental efficiency values to values located within the average.
To put into context what could have happened in Cyprus (Figure 15), the data on GDP and emissions have been reviewed since they are the main values that can determine a type of efficiency.
In Cyprus they have been affected in terms of eco-efficiency because methane emissions have presented a line that has been progressively increasing while CO2 decreased, but were still high.
We must also look at the case of Greece (Figure 16) since in the first period it presented a good eco-efficiency. Currently, all its emissions had decreased over time, but its economic indicators have experienced a decline due to the economic crisis that the country experienced since the end of 2009. This has undoubtedly harmed it in terms of eco-efficiency.
Finally, in the case of Spain, it has gone from a good eco-efficiency to another located in the average since the country's GDP, despite being in 4th place among the countries of the European Union, began to experience a decrease from 2008 due to the economic crisis and, not reaching values prior to this year until almost a decade later.
But Spain has not done everything wrong so that eco-efficiency values have dropped in this way in recent years, so it is necessary to comment on what has happened in both parameters related to eco-efficiency:
- Economic indicators: since 2005 the GDP growth in Spain has not been very positive. This growth is closely related to the economic crisis that broke out in 2008 (end of the real estate bubble, banking crisis, increase in unemployment...) and which, according to the INE (Spanish National Statistics Institute), ended in 2014. Although the INE said that its conclusion was that year, it is not until 2016 when values similar to those of 2008 are reached. In 2020 the GDP would hit another drop due to the pandemic caused by Covid 19.
- GHG emissions:carbon dioxide emissions have decreased since 2005 while methane emissions, despite experiencing a decrease, have also begun to increase since 2014.
- CO2 emissions: the fact that carbon dioxide emissions are experiencing a decrease shows that the commitment that Spain is making to renewable energies is working through the decarbonization plan initiated in 2007(RevistaHaz, 2022)
- CH4 emissions: there has been a small increase in these emissions in this last period. The sectors that contribute the most to these emissions in Spain are the livestock sector and the waste sector (Figure 17).
Therefore, to finish concluding the reason for the drop in eco-efficiency in Spain apart from its economic growth, it would be necessary to use the improved analysis to compare it at the European Union level. For this, look at the graph where eco-efficiency and methane emissions are compared (Figure 18) which shows that Spain is currently the 4th country that emits the most methane emissions.
The fact that Spain is currently the 4th country with the most methane emissions in the European Union harms it quite a bit in comparison since the other countries that were ahead of it before, such as Poland, which today has high emissions, have reduced its emissions while Spain, in the first study period, they placed it as the 6th country with the most methane emissions.