Departamento de Ingeniería Hidráulica Y Ambiental, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Avda. Vicuña Mackenna, 4860, Santiago, Chile.
Department of Business, New York College, Av. Vasilissis Amalias 38, 105 58, Athens, Greece.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Mar;29(11):16612-16623. doi: 10.1007/s11356-021-16906-8. Epub 2021 Oct 14.
Moving to a more sustainable and low-carbon footprint urban water cycle is essential in the light of climate change. In this paper, we estimate the implicit cost of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for several English and Welsh water companies from 2013 to 2019. Using econometric techniques, we compute the shadow prices of direct and indirect CO emissions associated with the provision of drinking water. This methodological approach also allows us to investigate the impact of a set of environmental variables on the costs of water companies and therefore on the costs of reducing GHG emissions. We then compute the returns to scale, technical change, and technical efficiency of the water companies. The empirical results show the following: (1) the average shadow price of CO across years was 0.114 £/kgCO, which means that the English and Welsh water industry needs to spend an extra £0.114 in operating expenditure to prevent the emission of one kilogramme of CO; (2) the cost of reducing GHG emissions is very variable among water companies and across years; (3) water taken from boreholes and average pumping head increases cost requirements and therefore the inefficiency of water companies; and (4) the water industry may lower its production costs and thus the costs of reducing GHG emissions by improving its daily operations and adopting new technologies. From a policy perspective, this study evidences that in the English and Welsh water industry, a market-based approach may be more suitable to reduce GHG emissions than a carbon tax policy.
鉴于气候变化的影响，向更加可持续和低碳足迹的城市水循环转变至关重要。本文旨在估算英国英格兰和威尔士几家水务公司在 2013 年至 2019 年期间减少温室气体 (GHG) 排放的隐含成本。我们使用计量经济学技术，计算了与饮用水供应相关的直接和间接 CO 排放的影子价格。这种方法还使我们能够研究一组环境变量对水务公司成本的影响，进而对 GHG 减排成本的影响。然后，我们计算了水务公司的规模报酬、技术进步和技术效率。实证结果表明：（1）多年来 CO 的平均影子价格为 0.114 英镑/公斤 CO，这意味着英国和威尔士的水务行业需要额外支出 0.114 英镑的运营支出，才能防止排放一公斤 CO；（2）减少 GHG 排放的成本在各水务公司和各年之间差异很大；（3）从钻孔中抽取的水和平均抽水扬程增加了成本要求，从而降低了水务公司的效率；（4）通过改善日常运营和采用新技术，水务行业可能会降低生产成本，从而降低 GHG 减排成本。从政策角度来看，本研究表明，在英国和威尔士的水务行业，基于市场的方法可能比碳税政策更适合减少 GHG 排放。
