Industrial sustainable development level in China and its influencing factors

This research aims to set up a comprehensive index system to evaluate the sustainable development level of the industrial sector in China and to determine the key influencing factors that hinder the sector’s sustainable development. To achieve these research goals, we build a theoretical model with 26 indexes selected from resource, environment, economy, and society subsystems. An empirical analysis is conducted through Principal Component Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling. Results indicate that the sustainable development level of China’s industrial sector became positive in 2007 and peaked in 2012. The environment subsystem has the largest effect on the sustainable development level. The sustainable development level is also greatly influenced by solid wastes, production of non-renewable resources, energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP), and industrial research and development (R&D) expenditure. The basic conclusion is that the sustainable development level of the industrial sector in China can be enhanced through improving the utilization efficiency of resources, increasing the contribution of technology progress to GDP, and developing renewable resources.