Modelling Carbon Emissions Efficiency from UK Higher Education Institutions Using Data Envelopment Analysis

Abstract

Aims: To correlate the energy and carbon emission efficiency relative to research income, gross internal area, and population for all the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK and to assess the comparative carbon emission efficiency of HEIs relative to economic metrics. Study Design:  Analytical panel data study. Place and Duration of Study: This paper evaluates the energy efficiency of 131 HEIs in the UK subdivided into Russell and non-Russell groups from 2008 to 2015. Methodology: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity indexes (MPI) are used for the efficiency calculations. Results: The empirical results indicate that UK HEIs have relatively high energy efficiency scores of 96.9% and 77.6% (CRS) and 98.5%, 86.3% (VRS) for Russell and non-Russell groups respectively. Conclusion: The evidence from this study reveals that HEIs are not significantly suffering from scale effects, hence, an increase in energy efficiency of these institutions is feasible with the present operating scale but would need to work on their technical improvements in energy use. Malmquist index analysis confirms the lack of substantial technological innovation, which impedes their energy efficiency and productivity gain. Findings show that pure technical efficiency accounts for the annual efficiency obtained in the DEA model, the technological progress in contrast is the source of their energy inefficiency.