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1 Evaluation Results of EMC

According to the evaluation indicator system and the mathematic model of EMC, the evaluation and analysis are made on EMC in 2012. Table 11.1 lists the rankings and scores of EMC in 2012 and Fig. 11.1 displays the EMC scores of the six continents as well as the top three countries of each continent in 2012.

Table 11.1 Scores and rankings of EMC as well as the tertiary and individual indicators in 2012
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Fig. 11.1
figure 1

EMC scores of six continents & top three countries of each continent in 2012

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According to Table 11.1, the countries with EMC ranking 1st–10th include Honduras, Bolivia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, United Kingdom, China, Namibia, Mongolia, Costa Rica and Poland; the 11th–20th rankings are Germany, Switzerland, Guatemala, Estonia, Jamaica, Bulgaria, United States, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and France; the 21st–30th rankings are Austria, Latvia, Norway, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Colombia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Slovenia; and the bottom ten countries are Singapore, Yemen, Rep., Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Niger, Iraq, Mali, Mauritania and Libya.

In 2012, the highest score of EMC is 68.0 points, the lowest score is 11.7, the average score is 49.1 and the standard deviation is 9.1. The highest score and the lowest score differ greatly with the margin of 56.3 points, the former being 5.8 times the latter. 72 countries score higher than the average point. It indicates that the overall level of EMC is rather high and the overall differences are not very large among the countries except for individual countries.

The scores of EMC show olive-shaped distribution. None scores above 70 points; 11countries score 60–70; 55 countries score 50–60; 48 countries score 40–50; 15 countries score 30–40; 3 countries score 20–30; only 1 country scores below 20 points, of 11.7.

The countries with higher EMC are almost equally divided between developed and developing countries. The countries with higher EMC are mainly developing countries. Among the 20 countries ranking ahead, only 69 are developed countries and the rest 11 are all developing countries. And, among the 30 countries ranking ahead, 16 are developed countries and 14 are developing countries. Most developed countries have higher level of EMC, because there are 24 countries among the top 60 countries accounting for 70.6 % of the all developed countries. However, the developed countries are not even on EMC: Japan and United Kingdom ranking 4th and 5th; Hungary and Singapore ranking 102nd and 124th respectively. Overall, the majority of developing countries still have low EMC, while the developed countries have relatively higher EMC.

To compare and analyze the EMC levels of all the countries in a more visual way, the EMC scores are displayed in Fig. 11.2. According to Fig. 11.2, the EMC scores of the countries are concentrated, mostly in 40–60 points (up to 103 countries, accounting for 77.44 % of the total), showing little differences among the countries except for individual countries. Among the developed countries, Japan scores the highest, 65.4 points; among the developing countries, Honduras scores the highest, 68.0 points. They have little difference.

Fig. 11.2
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Rankings and scores of EMC 2012

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2 Factor Scores and Contribution Rates of EMC

Table 11.1 lists the evaluation results of the subordinate indicators of EMC and displays the scores and rankings of 3 pillars and 10 individual indicators of EMC in 2012 so as to analyze the influences of the pillars and individual indicators on EMC of the countries.

On pillars, environmental governance enjoys the highest standard deviation, hitting 20.0, indicating that this indicator has the largest differences among the countries and is the most primary factor causing EMC differences among the countries. Resource utilization has low standard deviation, 10.9, with little influence on EMC differences among the countries. Overall, the differences among the countries are mainly caused by the differences of environmental safety.

On individual indicators, biome protect enjoys the highest standard deviation, hitting 32.9, indicating that this indicator has the largest differences among the countries and is the most primary factor causing EMC differences among the countries. Agricultural chemicals regulation, percentage of the rural population with access to an improved water source, percentage of total internal renewable water resources to total water resources, percentage of agricultural land to total land area and percentage of fossil fuel energy consumption to total energy consumption have high standard deviation, above 20, contributing a lot to EMC differences among the countries. The other indicators have low standard deviation, with little influence on EMC differences among the countries.

To analyze the contribution of the pillars to EMC, firstly multiply the scores of the pillars by respective weights, then convert them into the scores at sub-index and finally divide them by the total score of sub-index to get the contribution rates of the pillars. Thus, we could find the contribution of each pillar to the sub-index more visually, as shown in Fig. 11.3.

Fig. 11.3
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Contribution rates of pillars of EMC 2012

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According to Fig. 11.3, environmental governance contributes the most to EMC with the average contribution rate of 50.3 %; the contribution rate of ecological protection and resource utilization respectively are 27.0 % and 22.4 %. Some countries enjoy very high contribution rates of environmental governance, even above 80 %, e.g. Jordan and Iraq. Therefore, to enhance EMC, the countries shall focus specially on environmental governance, while not ignoring ecological protection and resource utilization.