Environmental Efficiency and Carbon Emission Abatement Strategies

The pursuit of environmental efficiency centres on maximising desirable outputs—such as goods and services—while minimising the consumption of natural resources and the generation of pollutants. In parallel, carbon emission abatement strategies encompass a spectrum of approaches aimed at reducing greenhouse gas releases at the lowest feasible cost. These strategies range from market-based instruments—such as emissions trading systems and carbon taxes—to technology-focused measures including renewable energy adoption, energy-efficient process improvements and carbon capture utilisation and storage. Underpinning these initiatives are quantitative methods that assess the performance of firms and sectors, guide policy design and inform investment decisions. By combining efficiency metrics with marginal abatement cost estimates, stakeholders can identify the most cost-effective pathways to decarbonisation, tailor interventions to local conditions and balance economic growth with climate targets. The global significance of these efforts is underscored by commitments under international climate agreements, national decarbonisation roadmaps and corporate net-zero pledges, all of which demand rigorous evaluation of environmental efficiency and abatement potential.

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Environmental Efficiency and Carbon Emission Abatement Strategies publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in environmental efficiency and carbon emission abatement strategies across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Environmental efficiency: A measure of how effectively a system converts inputs into desirable outputs while limiting resource use and pollutant generation.

Marginal abatement cost (MAC): The additional cost incurred to reduce one extra unit of pollutant, typically expressed per tonne of CO₂ or other emissions.

Directional distance function: An econometric technique that simultaneously expands desirable outputs and contracts undesirable outputs to gauge efficiency and abatement potential.

Shadow price: An implicit valuation of an undesirable output or resource constraint in an optimisation model, representing the cost of one additional unit of that output or constraint.

References

1. Environmental Efficiency and Pollution Costs of Nitrogen Surplus in Dairy Farms: A Parametric Hyperbolic Technology Distance Function Approach. Environmental and Resource Economics (2019).
2. Abatement costs of emissions from burning maize straw in major maize regions of China: Balancing food security with the environment. Journal of Cleaner Production (2019).
3. Carbon abatement in the European chemical industry: assessing the feasibility of abatement technologies by estimating firm-level marginal abatement costs. Energy Economics (2023).