Meta-Evaluation for the Evaluation of Environmental Management: Standards and Practices

Jing Ma, Zhaoyun Yin and Zhengbing Guo
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Jing Ma: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 28 Xianning Road West, Xi’an 710049, China
Zhaoyun Yin: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 28 Xianning Road West, Xi’an 710049, China
Zhengbing Guo: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 28 Xianning Road West, Xi’an 710049, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-18

Abstract: Environmental management plays a key role in the sustainable development of cities. The effectiveness of environmental management is commonly examined through some evaluation schemes, but the effectiveness of such evaluation schemes also needs to be verified. As such, in this study, meta-evaluation was creatively introduced into environmental management to improve the evaluation of environmental management (EEM). Meta-evaluation is the evaluation of an evaluation scheme, and can verify and enhance the evaluation quality. First, a set of new meta-evaluation standards and criteria was proposed based on the unique characteristics of environmental management, which made meta-evaluation standards more adaptable and effective. After that, the efficacy of the proposed meta-evaluation standards was verified through their application to two evaluation schemes used in different fields of EEM. Based on meta-evaluation, suggestions for improving these two EEM schemes were also provided. The major contributions of this study are to introduce meta-evaluation into environmental management, establish new evaluation standards, and examine the efficacy of EEM. The research showed that it is critical to carry out meta-evaluation before and/or after the implementation of EEM.

Keywords: meta-evaluation; evaluation of environmental management; standard; criteria; urban sewage treatment; national key ecological function areas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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