Total-factor ecology efficiency of regions in China

•We present a new index for evaluating ecological efficiency.•The new index is developed by combining Ecological Footprint with the total-factor framework.•We apply the new index to 28 provinces in China.•The new index evaluates ecology efficiency more comprehensively.

This paper combines the concept of Ecological Footprint (EF) with the framework of total-factor energy efficiency to develop a new index of total-factor ecology efficiency (TFEcE), which is constructed as the ratio of the target EF input obtained from SBM (slack-based measure) model to the actual ecology input under the consideration of labor and capital inputs. This paper computes the TFEcE of 28 provinces in China for the period 2000-2012. Findings show that China's TFEcE remains a low level of 0.5, which urgently needs to be improved. China's regional TFEcE is extremely unbalanced and the eastern area ranks first with the highest score. Compared with total-factor energy efficiency and traditional single-factor ecological efficiency, The TFEcE index evaluates ecology efficiency more comprehensively through taking EF in conjunction with the total-factor framework.