What is Dematerialization?

Ecological efficiency ^[1] (ecological efficiency) refers to the percentage of energy that is actually used between the various nutritional levels of the food chain. Energy is constantly flowing and transforming between the various nutritional levels of the food chain. Green plants convert solar radiation into chemical energy through photosynthesis, and store them in the form of organic matter; herbivores use green plants as food and take part of their energy, and carnivores eat herbivores as food and also take part of them. energy. This is the process of continuous energy transfer in the food chain. During each step of the transfer, there is a large amount of energy loss, and each level of the organism can only use a part of the energy provided by the previous level of the organism.

Ecological efficiency (ecological civilization level) is the efficiency of ecological resources to meet human needs, and it is the ratio of output to input. Ecological efficiency aims to find a balance between environmental protection and economic development, and strives to minimize the environmental impact while economic development, which fully reflects the ideological connotation of scientific development and harmonious development: the ecolog-icalefficiency of tourism shows Dynamic relationship between local economic growth and environmental pressure. ^[2]

For the first time in 1992, Agenda 21 adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio brought the concepts of sustainable development and "Environmentally Friendly" to the agenda of human development.

In China, in March 2005, the Central Population, Resources, and Environment Working Symposium proposed that we "strive to build a resource-saving and environment-friendly society." The 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has achieved comprehensive construction

EEI generates the unit ecological footprint for the region (refers to the overall impact of economic development on the ecological environment. The ecological footprint is equal to all resources consumed in production and the area of useful land needed to absorb its waste). It is directly proportional to GDP. Under a certain ecological footprint, the higher the GDP, the higher the level. Inversely proportional to the ecological footprint, the smaller the ecological footprint, the higher the level. EEI is directly synthesized from the generally accepted indicators of GDP and ecological footprint. The principle is simple, the calculation is convenient, and it is easy to apply. Therefore, it is a suitable indicator of the degree of comprehensive ecological civilization of economic development.

The first is GDP and population size.

Theoretically, under other conditions, the larger the population and economic scale of a region, the higher the level of ecological civilization. However, related analysis shows that this positive impact is not great.

The second is GDP per capita and labor productivity.

Due to different ecological efficiency under different economic structures and technological levels, the level of ecological civilization is directly proportional to GDP per capita and labor productivity. That is, under other conditions, the higher the regional GDP per capita and labor productivity, the higher its ecological civilization. The level tends to be higher. As the level of regional economic development and productivity increases, its level of ecological civilization tends to improve significantly.

The third is economic service.

The secondary industry is a material economy, while the tertiary industry is relatively dematerialized, so it can be predicted that the higher the economic service rate, that is, the ratio of the tertiary industry to GDP, the higher the level of ecological civilization will be. Compared with the provinces with rapid service economy, the ecological civilization level of those provinces that still have a relatively high proportion of industry is significantly lower.

The fourth is the level of urbanization.

The level of ecological civilization is closely related to the level of urbanization, and it is on the rise. In addition, the ownership of family cars reflects the level of urban development from one side, and its impact on the level of ecological civilization is multifaceted. From the statistical results, the correlation between the level of ecological civilization and the ownership of household cars is a significant positive correlation.

The fifth is the energy consumption of economic activities.

The level of ecological civilization is significantly negatively related to the energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP and energy consumption per unit of industrial added value. The enlightenment is: using technological innovation to reduce energy consumption, the development of circular economy will be an inevitable choice for future economic development.

The sixth is the per capita ecological footprint.

Under the condition of a certain economic output, the larger the per capita ecological footprint of the region, the greater the energy consumption per capita and the greater impact on the environment, and the smaller the level of ecological civilization, but this correlation is not significant.

The first is the consideration of changes in development methods. After the financial crisis in the second half of 2008, changing the mode of economic development has become a very urgent global strategic task. At present, the United States and other major countries and regions have emphasized a series of green development methods such as ET technology (energy and environmental technology) and a low-carbon economy. Since China entered the 11th Five-Year Period, it has emphasized energy conservation, consumption reduction, and emission reduction. Further propose the construction of ecological civilization. The ordering of ecological civilization in China's provinces and regions will help to change the tendency of each place in China to emphasize GDP simply and simply, and it will not help the development of each region change to the direction of ecological civilization.

The second is the consideration of indicator improvement. Regarding the degree of ecological civilization in the region, since the country implemented energy conservation, consumption reduction and emission reduction, it has mainly emphasized that it is measured by the GDP energy consumption indicator of 10,000 yuan. This indicator is very important, but it is not comprehensive enough. To measure whether the economic development of a region is ecologically civilized, this will help to more comprehensively measure the degree of ecological civilization development in each region.

Eco-efficiency takes into account the unification of economic efficiency and environmental benefits, and effectively integrates the sustainable development goals on the macro scale into the development planning and management of micro (such as enterprises) and meso (such as industries). The recognition and acceptance of many companies has also become an important reference for relevant policy makers. Since the 1990s, under the impetus of WBCSD, a series of seminars, research cases and work reports on eco-efficiency have appeared one after another. Eco-efficiency has become one of the hot research topics of industrial ecology at home and abroad.

The concept of ecological efficiency can also be applied to the study of species populations. For example, the utilization efficiency of plants by African elephant populations is about 9.6%, that is, only 3.0 × 10 ⁵ J / m ² can be used in the primary production of 3.1 × 10 ⁶ J / m ² ; The plant utilization efficiency is about 1.6%, while the Lindeman efficiency of the prairie voles nutrition link is only 0.3%, which is a very low value. Some species that we usually consider important are eventually found to play a small role in ecosystem energy transfer. For example, in 1970, GC Varley calculated the utilization efficiency of many vertebrates inhabiting Wytham forest. These animals depend on oak trees for their survival. Among them, the great tit has a utilization efficiency of 0.33% and the pupae has a utilization efficiency of 0.10%. The Linji rat is 0.75%. Even the dominant species here can only use 1% of the forest's net primary production. Plant-eating animals in grassland ecosystems often utilize more primary production than plant-eating animals in forest ecosystems. In aquatic ecosystems, zooplankton can take advantage of even higher proportions of net primary production. In 1975, Whittaker provided some average data on the use of animals by net primary production in different ecosystems. These data indicate that about 7% of the net primary production of tropical rainforests is used by animals, and 5% of temperate broad-leaved forest , The grassland is 10%, the open ocean is 40%, and the seawater upwelling zone is 35%. It can be seen that in forest ecosystems, the vast majority of net production leads to the detrital food chain ^[3] .