Analyzing Enterprises’ Environmental Performance Factors Using the Three-stage DEA Model under the Green Economic Development

To address the growing concerns of energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER), the pharmaceutical industry has been the target of government policies designed to foster innovation and promote sustainable growth. These policies emphasize the creation of a market-driven framework for green technology innovation, where environmental performance evaluation plays a pivotal role for pharmaceutical enterprises. This study investigates the environmental performance of 100 pharmaceutical companies in China using a three-stage Data Envelope Analysis (DEA) framework enhanced by the Bootstrap Malmquist DEA (BMDEA) model. The DEA-Malmquist index measures dynamic changes in environmental performance, while the Bootstrap-DEA approach corrects potential biases and enhances the evaluation's robustness. Additionally, panel Quantile Regression and review Quantile Regression methods are utilized to examine environmental performance factors. The analysis reveals that the average technical efficiency index of pharmaceutical enterprises is 1.224, indicating an annual growth rate of 2.6%, which reflects the effectiveness of management practices. Over five years, pure technical efficiency improved by 4.9%, signaling better resource utilization. However, scale efficiency declined by 2.5% on average, suggesting that enterprise size may limit improvements in environmental performance. Despite these challenges, the overall trend in environmental performance shows improvement, driven by factors such as economies of scale, technological maturity, environmental awareness, public pressure, and corporate innovation. Notably, the impact of these factors varies across different quantiles. Pharmaceutical companies should focus on optimizing their scale and intensifying innovation efforts to further enhance environmental performance. This study's findings provide valuable insights for policymakers and industry leaders seeking to improve environmental efficiency and promote sustainable development within the pharmaceutical sector.