Sustainability efficiency assessment of listed companies in China: a super-efficiency SBM-DEA model considering undesirable output

Chinese listed companies play a vital role in national economy, which has contributed more than half of the gross domestic product. But the environmental pollution existed in the production and operation of companies has been ignored, so an objective and comprehensive efficiency assessment of Chinese listed companies were urgent. This paper constructed an index system based on green perspective, employed a super-efficiency slacks-based measure DEA (SBM-DEA) model considering undesirable outputs to assess the sustainability efficiency of Chinese listed companies. The results indicated that (1) the green sustainability efficiency of listed companies needed to be greatly improved. The average efficiency score of samples was 0.461 over 3 years, so the improvement potential was about 53.9%, only 23 companies were relatively effective. (2) The sustainability efficiency of companies has shown a slow upward trend in volatility since 2017, the non-daily consumer goods sector was the most efficient, while utilities were relatively inefficient. (3) When efficient and inefficient companies were compared, the latter were found to have significant input surplus, especially in water consumption. (4) The analysis of sensitivity on inputs and outputs showed that attention should be paid to water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. (5) Spearman non-parametric test verified that company size and debt-paying ability were the implicit factors affecting company sustainability efficiency. The results of performance evaluation can not only provide a potential reference for the operation and management of listed companies in China, but also have guiding significance for local governments to strengthen the supervision of companies.