Technological innovation paths toward green industry in China

With the environmental carrying capacity reaching its limits and the decreasing margin benefits of traditional production factors, the green transformation and green development through technological innovations has been a major direction for the future development of Chinese industries. However, the characteristics and heterogeneities of various types of industries call for different approaches regarding technological innovations. How to choose the most effective mode of technological innovation according to the characteristics of a certain industry has been a key issue. This paper measures the green total factor productivity of 32 industrial trades using the Slacks Based Measure (SBM)-DDF method. The effects of three innovation modes in the green transformation of industrial industry, including the independent innovation (II), the technology introduction (TI), and the government support (GS), are empirically analyzed based on industry heterogeneity. Results indicate that the green total factor productivities of different industries show significant differences if taking into account the energy input and the undesirable output of pollutant emissions. The green total factor productivities of traditional high input, high pollution, and high energy consumption industrial trades were significantly lower than those with obvious green features. The year of 2009 is a leap year for the industrial green transformation in China. For resource-intensive industries, the II and the GS are the important ways to achieve green transformation. For labor-intensive industries, the TI is the best path to achieve green transformation, while for technology-intensive industries, the II is the primary driving force for the promotion of green developments. In addition, the innovation-compensating effect of the current Chinese environmental regulations to the resource-intensive industries has been revealed. Improving the overall scale and the industrial concentration of the industries is also beneficial for the green transformation of the industries.