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Resource exergy analysis of the Chinese society in 2017

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Abstract

China has made huge efforts to increase the efficiency of its resources and change its resource-intensive economic trajectory. A question which should be raised is whether the impacts of such shifts can be measured. Exergy analysis provides a unified method of ecological diagnosis of resource allocation and metabolism in social systems from a biophysical perspective. This paper explores the resource utilization pattern within Chinese society by employing an exergy-based accounting method. Nationally total resource consumption amounted to 153.7 EJ in 2017, and non-biological resources reached 137.1 EJ. China’s resource self-sufficiency rate was revealed as 79.1%. After China experienced a transition period with a medium–high economic growth rate, the total net resource input into Chinese society marked an increase of around 1% from 2012 to 2017. The per capita resource consumption dropped from 112.0 GJ in 2012 to 110.6 GJ in 2017. The proportion of resource exergy consumption in the tertiary sector was upregulated from 10.0% in 2012 to 17.6% in 2017. To be specific, the exergy conversion efficiency of the domestic sector rose from 1.3% in 2012 to 20.6% in 2017. The results confirm that the resource exergy utilization structures and the conversion efficiencies of the main social sectors in China’s economic transition period were significantly optimized towards a more sustainable future. A reasonable analysis of the resource exergy utilization pattern provides a solid reference for assessing the comprehensive effect of the changed development speed, industrial structure, and driving force of a developing society.

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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article, supplied as supplementary material, or are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Helpful comments from Dr. K.J. Yan are greatly appreciated.

Funding

This study has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 72088101).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, China University of Mining & Technology (Beijing), Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Zheng Meng & Zhuan Yang

  2. China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy, School of Management, Xiamen University, Fujian, 361005, People’s Republic of China

    Bo Zhang

  3. School of Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Xudong Wu

Authors
  1. Zheng Meng
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  2. Zhuan Yang
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  3. Bo Zhang
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Contributions

Zheng Meng: Methodology, Data curation, Software, Writing—original draft. Zhuan Yang: Data curation, Investigation, Validation, Formal analysis. Bo Zhang: Conceptualization, Visualization, Supervision, Writing—review & editing. Xudong Wu: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing—review & editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bo Zhang.

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Highlights

• Resource exergy utilization pattern of the Chinese society in 2017 is revealed.

• System diagrams are used to visualize sectoral resource exergy inflows and outflows.

• We identify sectoral resource use structures and efficiencies between 2012 and 2017.

• Resource utilization shifted from quantitative expansion to qualitative improvement.

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Meng, Z., Yang, Z., Zhang, B. et al. Resource exergy analysis of the Chinese society in 2017. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 42016–42033 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25278-0

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