**1. Introduction**

While pursuing industrial and economic development, wastewater and air pollution have short-term and long-term impacts on the environment and human beings [1,2]. Countries around the world have invested a lot of money and resources to try to solve the problems of wastewater and air pollution caused by production and manufacturing. Human beings need to take sustainable actions within the existing environmental resources [3]. Therefore, the agenda for sustainable development sets out 17 sustainable development goals to be achieved by 2030 and will mobilize countries around the world to incorporate sustainable development goals into their national development strategies. Sustainable development goals SDG-6 (sustainable development of water resources) and SDG-9 (development of inclusive sustainable industry) play a vital role in environmental protection, economic development and the promotion of human well-being in achieving

**Citation:** Feng, Y.; Yang, C.-Y.; Lu, C.-C.; Tang, P.-Y. Measuring Pollution Control and Environmental Sustainable Development in China Based on Parallel DEA Method. *Energies* **2022**, *15*, 5697. https:// doi.org/10.3390/en15155697

Academic Editors: Junpeng Zhu and Xinlong Xu

Received: 3 July 2022 Accepted: 3 August 2022 Published: 5 August 2022

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these sustainable development goals. In China, since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy after 1980, prosperity and affluence have gone deep into the mainland from the early coastal areas. According to data released by the World Bank (as shown in Figure 1), we can see the impact of the 2008 financial tsunami and the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic on the global GDP growth rate. In addition, China's GDP growth rate is better than that of the world.

**Figure 1.** Analysis of GDP growth in the world and China (annual%).

The destruction of environmental resources caused by development has directly affected national health and the environment for human survival. According to China's "industrial classification of national economy", industries are divided into three categories: the primary industry is mainly agriculture, the secondary industry is mainly industry and the tertiary industry is mainly the service industry. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (National Bureau of Statistics of China: http:// www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/, accessed on 1 February 2022) (as shown in Figure 2), from 1978 to 2020, the fastest growth of China's GDP is in the secondary industry, followed by the service industry. The rapid development of China's economy largely depends on energy consumption, which has caused serious pollution [4,5]. In order to achieve energy conservation and emission reduction and strengthen pollution control [6], we must pay attention to the relevant issues of sustainable development goals SDG-6 and SDG-9. In order to improve environmental quality, improve national health and wellbeing, maintain environmental resources and pursue sustainable development, which has become a universal common value, the State Council of China put forward the outline of the Yellow River Basin Ecological Protection and High-Quality Development Plan in 2021 (Outline of Ecological Protection and High-Quality Development Plan for the Yellow River Basin (2021): http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2021-10/08/content\_5641438.htm, accessed on 1 February 2022). In addition to investing in pollution prevention and control funds, it also standardized the high energy consumption and high-pollution enterprises in the region. It includes various pollutant discharge standards and monitoring systems to ensure that significant progress will be made in the ecology and development of the Yellow River Basin by 2025.

As mentioned above, the government's policy and financial expenditure on environmental protection have a certain input–output relationship and impact mechanism between regional energy use and pollutant emission (Figure 3). When the industrial production department promotes economic development due to the investment of labor, capital, energy and water resources, the pollution control department is due to the investment of government prevention and control funds. It is beneficial to improve the unintended

substances discharged from the production process, such as SOx and smoke dust in waste gas, heavy metal lead in wastewater, etc., to maintain the natural environment and the health of people. Therefore, this study uses DDF and TGR methods to objectively evaluate the impact of pollution control on the production efficiency of the Yellow River Basin and Non-Yellow River Basin in China from 2013 to 2017. The structure of this study is as follows: Section 2 analyzes the literature on industrial production efficiency, energy efficiency, water efficiency, air pollution emission and treatment; Section 3 introduces the methods; and Section 4 introduces the data, narrative statistics and empirical result analysis. The last part puts forward conclusions and suggestions for future research.

**Figure 2.** China's GDP index from 1978 to 2020.

**Figure 3.** Input and output process of variables in this study.
