School of Economics, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing, China.
Front Public Health. 2022 Oct 20;10:1000393. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1000393. eCollection 2022.
Maintaining public health requires a clean environment; however, some industrial wastes can damage the water, atmosphere, and living environment seriously. To promote green development, policy makers in China have developed and implemented strict environmental regulations to limit the pollutant emissions and improve the environmental quality. Industrial producers implement research and development (R&D) activities to gain more profits in competitive markets. A comprehensive understanding of the green effects of R&D on different industrial wastes could provide important policy recommendations, especially regarding the coordination of innovative and green developments. In this study, the author empirically analyzed the influence of R&D input, including the intramural expenditure on R&D and full-time equivalent of R&D personnel, on industrial wastes, including the discharge of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia nitrogen, emission of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter, and generation of common industrial solid and hazardous wastes, based on the data from Chinese industrial sectors for 2016-2020. The main findings of empirical analyses were robust and indicated that R&D activities significantly reduced the emissions of all three industrial waste gases and decreased the discharge of COD; however, in the case of China, the partial effects on the discharge of ammonia nitrogen and the industrial solid wastes were not statistically significant. The green effects of R&D on different industrial wastes may vary and generally depend on environmental regulations, with various limitations. The most viable policy recommendations indicate that by expanding and initiating the green effect of R&D on different industrial wastes, innovative and green developments are more likely to be achieved in a coordinated manner. Additionally, this can also support special R&D activities, with the added benefit of actively developing cleaner technology to treat pollutant emissions. Development, while maintaining a clean environment to ensure public health, could be more sustainable if innovative activities reduce the production of industrial wastes. This study analyzes the green effects of R&D on industrial waste and can serve as a viable framework for future studies on sustainable development.
维护公共卫生需要一个清洁的环境；然而，一些工业废物会严重破坏水、大气和生活环境。为了促进绿色发展，中国的政策制定者制定并实施了严格的环境法规，以限制污染物排放，改善环境质量。工业生产者实施研发（R&D）活动，以在竞争激烈的市场中获得更多利润。全面了解 R&D 对不同工业废物的绿色影响，可以提供重要的政策建议，特别是在创新和绿色发展的协调方面。在这项研究中，作者根据 2016-2020 年中国工业部门的数据，实证分析了研发投入（包括内部研发支出和研发人员全时当量）对工业废物（包括化学需氧量（COD）和氨氮排放、二氧化硫、氮氧化物和颗粒物排放以及一般工业固体废物和危险废物产生）的影响。实证分析的主要结果是稳健的，表明 R&D 活动显著减少了所有三种工业废气的排放，降低了 COD 的排放量；然而，就中国而言，R&D 对氨氮排放和工业固体废物的部分影响在统计上并不显著。R&D 对不同工业废物的绿色影响可能因环境法规的不同而有所差异，且存在各种局限性。最可行的政策建议表明，通过扩大和启动 R&D 对不同工业废物的绿色效应，可以更有可能以协调的方式实现创新和绿色发展。此外，这也可以支持特殊的研发活动，积极开发更清洁的技术来处理污染物排放，从而带来额外的好处。如果创新活动减少工业废物的产生，发展就可以在保持清洁环境以确保公共卫生的同时更加可持续。本研究分析了 R&D 对工业废物的绿色影响，可以作为未来可持续发展研究的可行框架。
