Construction of Government Environmental Audit System in the Yangtze River Economic Belt under the Perspective of Green Development

With the promotion of ecological civilization construction and the optimization of the development of national audit function, in the government audit work, environmental audit plays a very important role, and is still constantly undergoing dynamic changes [1-2]. For China’s national construction, environmental audit is a very critical work, even if faced with severe environmental pollution in the special treatment can also be achieved to a large extent, however, because of industrial transfer [3-6], industrial restructuring, industrial development of increasingly high intensity, coupled with the play of the transportation system in that makes environmental pollution and showed a clear composite, regional Problems, only individual areas to carry out the work of governance is difficult to achieve the desired results of governance [7-10].

The Yangtze River Economic Zone, as an important pole of China’s economic growth, is also a relatively fragile ecological environment in China. The large scale of water resources and tourism development projects, transportation and port construction in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, rapid urbanization and rough agricultural management, insufficient investment in environmental protection, and inadequate environmental governance mechanisms have led to outstanding resource, environmental and ecological problems in the basin [11-14]. Therefore, the government should be fully aware of the fact that environmental governance has become an urgent task for social development, so as to promote the ecological environmental governance and the construction of ecological civilization system as soon as possible from the government level [15-16]. Resource and environmental auditing is a powerful initiative for environmental governance in the Yangtze River Economic Zone, and in the context of changing environmental governance objectives and the growing experience of audit projects, the initiative has also begun to focus on areas that would not have been involved before [17-19].

This paper analyzes the correlation between the concept of green development and government environmental auditing, combines the characteristics and relationship between the two, and constructs the government environmental auditing index system of the Yangtze River Economic Belt from the perspective of green development under the guidance of balanced scorecard theory. The principal component extraction method is used to obtain the weight value of each audit indicator, and the indicators are normalized. Then use the variable-weight hierarchical comprehensive evaluation method to analyze the results of government environmental audit scores of the Yangtze River Economic Zone under the perspective of green development. This study analyzes the scale of pollution prevention and funding performance of 11 provinces and municipalities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt to explore the necessity of government environmental auditing under the perspective of green development. Then Hubei Province, where industrial pollution is more serious, is selected as the case object, and the audit system is used to evaluate the scores of its governmental environmental dimensions, and the supervisory and rectification effects related to the green development of Hubei Province under the application of the audit system are analyzed in order to explore the effectiveness of the application of the audit system.

2

Construction of governmental environmental audit systems and analytical methods

2.1

Analysis of the relevance of green development and government environmental auditing

2.1.1

Green development concept

The concept of green development requires that economic development should place resource conservation and the protection of the ecological environment in an important position. It is only by adhering to the green development concept that we can promote sustainable economic development and embark on the civilized development path of building an ecological civilization. Apply the advantages of the green development concept to the construction of a resource-saving society and an environmentally friendly society, build a beautiful China, and contribute to the ecological maintenance of the world. On the path of economic development, all economic actions should be carried out in a way that is favorable to natural resources and environmental protection, putting the protection of ecological balance in the first place, and not sacrificing the environment in exchange for economic development. Moreover, environmental protection as a new economic growth point, from the green digging gold, from the maintenance of ecological health to obtain economic benefits, both the economic development of the gold mountain and the valuable green water and green mountains.

2.1.2

Government environmental audits

The strict concept of government environmental audit has not yet been a unified conclusion, with reference to the literature from all walks of life and the results of domestic and foreign environmental auditing theory, this paper regards government environmental audit as one of the types of audits like financial, fiscal and economic auditing, which is an independent supervisory act in which the environmental auditor collects information and data to obtain the auditing evidence, and then analyzes and evaluates them, and makes an auditing conclusion on the audited unit’s environmental management. An independent supervision behavior. The government environmental audit is the national auditing authority in accordance with the law on the audited unit to carry out environmental management related activities to evaluate whether the real legal and effective supervisory behavior, which includes the audited unit production and management process of environmental issues, as well as the impact of economic activities on the environment.

2.1.3

Relationship between the concept of green development and government environmental auditing

Government environmental auditing realizes the implementation of the concept of green development. Government environmental auditing is one of the most important means for the government to carry out national governance, and it is an important means to promote the implementation of the green development concept to every audited unit. Through the audit work, the government environmental audit uses its evaluation and supervision function to find out the problems in the environmental management and the hidden dangers caused by the environment, evaluates the management effect, supervises the corrective action to ensure that the environmental protection policy and the concept of green development can be implemented to ensure that the country’s resources and ecological environment are protected. The goal of government environmental audit is to realize green development. The goal of government environmental audit is to prevent pollution of the environment, waste of resources, realize ecological civilization, and ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of environmental management. Discussing government environmental audit in the perspective of green development concept is conducive to combining the current problems and the requirements of the new situation, to play the function of environmental audit more effectively, to play a role in national governance, and to promote the healthy and green development of the economy.

2.2

Construction of an audit indicator system based on green development

The government environmental audit indicator system of the Yangtze River Economic Belt under the perspective of green development is a materialization of the financial and green development audit standards and the key contents of the financial and green development audit, which specifies the green development standards required to be achieved by the government environmental investment projects in the Yangtze River Economic Belt in a quantitative or qualitative form. The logical framework of the government environmental audit indicator system under the green development perspective constructed in this paper and the nature of the indicators are shown in Table 1. Drawing on the balanced scorecard theory [20], the audit evaluation of the government environmental audit indicator system is set as the overall strategic objective, and the four levels of financial efficiency, green development pressure, green development quality and green development governance are set as the first-level indicators of the audit evaluation system. Then, based on the outstanding characteristics of the government environmental audit system under the perspective of green development, specific secondary indicators are designed under the four major levels.

Table 1.

Government environmental audit index system

Index system	Audit dimension	Concrete index	Index number
Government environmental audit system	Financial benefit	Funding rate	X11
		Capital utilization	X12
		Purchase of material equipment	X13
		Investment income	X14
		Internal income	X15
	Green development pressure	Industrial nitrogen oxide emissions	X21
		Sulfur dioxide emissions	X22
		Industrial soot emissions	X23
	Green development quality	Industrial nitrogen oxide emissions	X31
		Sulfur dioxide emissions	X32
		Industrial soot emissions	X33
		Air quality	X34
	Green development governance	Number of punishment in administrative department	X41
		Public satisfaction	X42
		Sewage rate	X43

2.3

Evaluation methods for government environmental audits under green development

2.3.1

Principal Component Extraction Method Modeling

The environmental audit evaluation index system constructed in this paper is composed of 4 guideline layers and 15 indicators, which requires the use of variable-weighted comprehensive evaluation method, through the design of questionnaires in order to obtain the weights of each indicator layer. The existing environmental audit evaluation index system uses less data analysis software and cannot avoid the heavy calculation amount. Based on the extraction of principal components method is conducive to more direct and objective audit results.

After the KMO value and Bartlett’s spherical test for principal component extraction, it is not recommended to use extracted principal component analysis if the KMO value is less than 0.5. If the value of Bartlett’s test of sphericity is significantly greater than 0.05, it means that the correlation matrix can not be expressed as a unit matrix, and it is only recommended to use the extraction of principal components if both conditions are met. The model logic is mapped to the mathematical expression of setting the original p independent factor X₁,X₂,X₃…X_P and each variable is dimensionless and normalized, and each of the original variables is expressed as a linear combination of M(M < p) common factors F₁,F₂,F₃…F_m, and the model is shown in (1): (1) ${\begin{matrix} X_{1} = A_{11} F_{1} + A_{12} F_{2} + A_{13} F_{3} + \dots + A_{1 m} F_{m} + ε_{1} \\ X_{2} = A_{21} F_{1} + A_{22} F_{2} + A_{23} F_{3} + \dots + A_{2 m} F_{m} + ε_{2} \\ X_{3} = A_{31} F_{1} + A_{32} F_{2} + A_{33} F_{3} + \dots + A_{3 m} F_{m} + ε_{2} \\ \dots \\ X_{p} = A_{p 1} F_{1} + A_{p 2} F_{2} + A_{p 3} F_{3} + \dots + A_{p m} F_{m} + ε_{2} \end{matrix}$

Where X_i represents the ind independent factor after dimensionless (i = 1,2,3,…,p), F_j represents the extracted jth public factor (j = 1,2,3,…,k), k< m; a_ij represents the coefficient of public factor F_ij, which is the factor loading, i.e., the correlation coefficient between the ith variable and the jth factor; and ε_i is the special factor or error of the ith variable, i.e., the part that is not interpreted and absorbed by the public factor.

According to the extracted new public factors [21], Kaiser normalized orthogonal rotation is performed, and the factor loading matrix is obtained after the rotation, and the factor model after the rotation is as follows: (2) ${\begin{matrix} F_{1}' = b_{11} X_{1} + b_{12} X_{2} + b_{13} X_{3} + \dots + b_{1 p} X_{p} \\ F_{2}' = b_{21} X_{1} + b_{22} X_{2} + b_{23} X_{3} + \dots + b_{2 p} X_{p} \\ F_{3}' = b_{31} X_{1} + b_{32} X_{2} + b_{33} X_{3} + \dots + b_{3 p} X_{p} \\ \dots \\ F_{k}' = b_{k 1} X_{1} + b_{k 2} X_{2} + b_{k 3} X_{3} + \dots + b_{k p} X_{p} \end{matrix}$

Where F is the new principal component factor obtained, b is the factor contribution of the selected indicator variables to the principal component, and finally the final composite factor is calculated using the formula for principal components: (3) $X = (W_{1} F_{1}' + W_{2} F_{2}' + W_{3} F_{3}' + \dots + W_{j} F_{j}') / (W_{1} + W_{2} + W_{3} + \dots + W_{j})$

w_j indicates the variance contribution of the jnd factor.

2.3.2

Variable-weight hierarchical integrated evaluation method

1)

Normalization of evaluation indicators

The normalization of indicators can be divided into two categories: linear and non-linear. Among them, the current normalization methods such as the traditional efficacy coefficient method mentioned earlier, and the generalized index method. Both can be summarized in the following three formulas.

When is a positive indicator: (4) $X' = {(\frac{X_{1} - X}{X_{1} - X_{0}})}^{α} \times α + (100 - α)$

When a positive indicator: (5) $X' = {(\frac{X - X_{0}}{X_{1} - X_{0}})}^{α} \times α + (100 - α)$

When is the optimal value indicator: (6) $X' = [1 - {(\frac{X - X_{\max}}{X_{\max}})}^{2 n}] \times α + (100 - α)$

Where α and n are natural numbers, X₁ and X₀ are the permissible and impermissible values of X, and X_max is the optimal value within a certain range.

The distribution of the function is diversified, containing both monotonically increasing and decreasing functions, as well as monotonically variable functions at the same time, which corresponds to the three indicators of forward indicators, inverse indicators and optimal value indicators. In view of the fact that in the perspective of green development, the data of the cities in the districts can not satisfy the ideal linear model, and thus this paper adopts the nonlinear method to normalize the indicator data.

2)

Determine the constant weight vector

As can be seen from the description of the specific indicators of the government environmental audit evaluation index system, this paper divides the government environmental audit evaluation index system under green development into two levels, and the weights of the index layer can be determined by the following methods:

The hierarchical analysis method requires a questionnaire survey of experts to construct judgment matrices at each level, and obtain the constant weight vector of factors at the indicator level W = (w₁,w₂,…,w_m) and the constant weight vector of factors at the criterion level D = (d₁,d₂,d₃).

3)

Determine the state variable weight vector and variable weight vector

The difference between the indicators at the criterion level reflects the quality of ecological civilization audit, and the larger the difference indicates the lower the audit quality. For the indicators with large differences, this paper adopts the variable weight vector [22] for processing, and its specific formula is as follows.

State variable weight vector: (7) $S_{i j} (x_{i}) = e^{- δ (x_{i j} - \bar{x_{j}})}$

Variable weight vector: (8) $W (x) = \frac{(W_{1} S_{1} (x), \dots, W_{m} S_{m} (x))}{\sum_{j = 1}^{\bar{F}} w_{j} s_{j} (x)}$

Green development pressure reflects the negative impact of human activities on the ecological environment, so a localized penalized state variable weight vector should be established, and when y₁ is below a certain level a, a penalty is given. When y₁ is greater than or equal to a certain level a, no punishment or incentive, i.e., when the pressure of ecological civilization is lower than a specific threshold, the resulting negative impact is considered to have exceeded the acceptable range. The specific calculation formula is as follows: (9) $S_{1} (y) = {\begin{matrix} e^{- (a - y_{i})} & y_{i} < a \\ 1 & y_{i} \geq a \end{matrix} i = 1$

Whether it is the quality of green development or the construction of green development, its value reflects the current green ecological status and the degree of rectification and attention to cope with the adverse impacts caused by human activities, and the larger the value, the better the effectiveness of environmental management. Therefore, a mixed state variable weight vector is established to penalize when y₂ or y₃ is less than a certain level a, and to motivate when y₂ or y₃ is greater than or equal to a certain level b. When y₂ or y₃ is between a and b, neither penalty nor incentive is given. In other words, if the value of the green development quality indicator is lower than 0.5, it can be interpreted that the current green development situation is not satisfactory; if it is not lower than the threshold of 0.7, it is considered that the environmental quality is good; and if it is in between, the environmental quality is average. For other guideline layers, the idea of setting is consistent with it. The specific calculation formula is as follows: (10) $S_{i} (y) = {\begin{matrix} e^{- (a - y_{i})} & y_{i} < a \\ 1 & a \leq y_{i} < b \\ e^{(y_{i} - b)} & y_{i} \geq b \end{matrix} i = 2, 3$

δ in the above equation is the parameter greater than 0, a is the penalty level, and b is the incentive level. The formula for calculating the variable weight vector of the criterion layer is as follows: (11) $W (y) = \frac{(d_{1} s_{1} (y), \dots, d_{3} s_{3} (y))}{\sum_{j = 1}^{3} d_{i} s_{i} (y)}$

4)

Comprehensive evaluation score

After deriving the variable weights of each indicator level, the constant-weighted comprehensive score and variable-weighted comprehensive score of the government environmental audit are calculated respectively, and the specific formulas are as follows: (12) $\begin{array}{l} \begin{matrix} C o n s t a n t w e i g h t s \\ c o m p o s i t e s c o r e \end{matrix} = \sum (\begin{array}{l} d i m e n s i o n l e s s b a s e d a t a \\ \times i n d i c a t o r l a y e r c o n s t a n t w e i g h t v e c t o r \\ \times q u a s i - m e a s u r e m e n t l a y e r \\ c o n s t a n t w e i g h t v e c t o r \end{array}) \\ \begin{matrix} V a r i a b l e w e i g h t \\ c o m p o s i t e s c o r e \end{matrix} = \sum (\begin{array}{l} d i m e n s i o n l e s s b a s e d a t a \\ \times i n d i c a t o r l a y e r v a r i a b l e w e i g h t v e c t o r \\ \times q u a s i - m e a s u r e m e n t l a y e r \\ v a r i a b l e w e i g h t v e c t o r \end{array}) \end{array}$

3

Analysis of the practical application of the Government Environmental Audit System

3.1

Analysis of the necessity of environmental auditing for the government of the Yangtze River Economic Belt

3.1.1

Analysis of the overall situation of the Yangtze River Economic Zone

The Yangtze River Economic Belt covers 11 provinces (municipalities directly under the central government), including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou, and is divided into upstream, midstream and downstream areas, with the downstream area including four provinces and cities, namely Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. The midstream region includes Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan provinces, and the upstream region includes Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan provinces and municipalities. 11 provinces (municipalities directly under the central government), such as population, GDP and other basic information is shown in Table 2. The total population is 608,072,100, accounting for 43.07% of China’s total population, the GDP in 2022 is 559,766,640,000,000 Yuan, accounting for 46.30% of China’s GDP, the total water resources are 214,566,000,000 cubic meters, and there are 1,163 nature reserves, accounting for 43.99% of China’s number of nature reserves.

Table 2.

The basic situation of the Yangtze economic belt 11 province

Province	Population (10,000)	Gross product (Hundred dollars)	Forest area (Wan ha)	Prairie area (kilha)	Naturally	Total water resources (MCU)
Shanghai	2475.89	44652.8	10.32	65.52	5	36.5
Jiangsu	8515	122875.6	1183.71	2669.4	112	4774.8
Zhejiang	6577	77715.4	528.36	8983.5	67	860
Anhui	6127	45045	380.09	8988.4	41	4855.5
Jiangxi	4527.98	32.74.7	348.46	8307.8	122	2445.2
Hubei	5844	53734.9	632.46	6656.3	199	1380.5
Hunan	6604	48670.4	673.53	759.3	134	712.3
Chongqing	3213.34	29129	627.53	6618.1	145	2327.1
Sichuan	8374	56749.8	1322.1	4790.8	109	849.9
Guizhou	3856	20164.6	836.58	742.9	50	532.8
Yunnan	4693	28954.2	1246.38	1763.6	183	2682
Total	60807.21	559766.4	7789.52	50345.62	1167	21456.6
China	141180	1210207.2	22415.62	352641.6	2653	32651.3

3.1.2

Scale analysis of pollution prevention in the Yangtze River Economic Zone

Due to the emphasis on GDP growth over environmental protection in the historical development process, cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt are faced with the severe challenges of insufficient protection of the hydrological system of the watershed and serious deterioration of the ecological environment, with many pollutant discharges that are difficult to restore, and with obvious pressure on the security of drinking water. The urgency and complexity of ecological environmental protection is increasing, and the chemical industry in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River has outstanding risk potentials in terms of resources and environment. The development and construction of cities and towns in some areas are crowding out the ecological space of mountains, water, forests, fields, lakes and grasses, and the contradiction between development and protection is becoming more and more obvious. Some of the pollution prevention and control scale data of 11 provinces (municipalities directly under the central government) in the Yangtze River Economic Belt in 2022 are shown in Table 3. The total wastewater discharge of the 11 provinces (municipalities directly under the central government) in the Yangtze River Economic Belt in 2022 will total 4,490,629,610 tons, accounting for 59.38% of China’s total wastewater discharge in 2023.The total particulate matter discharge of the 11 provinces will total 4,319,500 tons. In addition, in terms of water consumption and garbage removal, the total amount of provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt reached 1,830,800 tons and 4,769,900 tons in total, which shows that the water consumption and pollution prevention and control tasks in the Yangtze River Economic Belt are huge. This is extremely inconsistent with the concept of green development, so it is necessary to audit and rectify the governmental environment of the Yangtze River Economic Belt as soon as possible.

Table 3.

Partial Pollution Prevention and Control Scale Data of 11 Provinces

Province	Total waste (Million tons)	Total particulate matter (Million tons)	Amount of water (MCU)	Daily garbage volume (Million tons)
Shanghai	322314.03	43.03	219.25	525.67
Jiangsu	552895.33	58.68	253.84	787.66
Zhejiang	591595.02	4.96	198.16	487.7
Anhui	557772.97	33.00	189.62	937.68
Jiangxi	233639.56	54.29	131.26	864.42
Hubei	246284.35	41.27	395.74	589.17
Hunan	547267.03	41.21	83.95	565.75
Chongqing	568366.17	21.86	380.92	830.22
Sichuan	303766.66	53.27	425.02	538.96
Guizhou	211016.94	55.47	159.04	918.8
Yunnan	355711.55	24.91	183.08	476.99
Total	4490629.61	431.95	2619.88	7523.02
China	7562541.62	1145.26	6123.54	20136.52

3.1.3

Performance analysis of green development-related funds

Due to the great strategic significance of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the arduous task of ecological protection, the state has successively introduced a series of systems and programs, and has invested a large amount of financial resources to help protect the ecology of the Yangtze River Basin. Some of the ecological and environmental protection related financial investment data of 11 provinces (municipalities directly under the central government) in the Yangtze River Economic Belt in 2021 and 2022 are shown in Figure 1. In 2021 and 2022, the local financial expenditure on environmental protection of 11 provinces (municipalities directly under the central government) in the Yangtze River Economic Belt totaled 156.082 billion yuan and 211.411 billion yuan. The total completed investment in industrial pollution control is 210,353.3 million yuan and 339,172.4 million yuan, respectively, accounting for 41.26% and 39.52% of the completed investment in China’s industrial pollution control. Upon analysis, the ecological and environmental protection related funds in the Yangtze River Economic Belt are high, and behind the funds are the important decision-making deployments and construction projects, which urgently need audit supervision and supervision of the more advanced.

In summary, this paper will utilize the proposed government environmental audit system and evaluation method to carry out the government environmental audit of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, to reveal the risks and hidden dangers as well as the real problems in the use of related funds and pollution prevention and control, and to promote the government’s environmental rectification and thus contribute to the green development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

3.2

Analysis of the results of the evaluation of government environmental audits

3.2.1

Determination of the weights of the indicators of the audit system

In the above, the index system of government environmental audit evaluation of the Yangtze River Economic Zone under the perspective of green development is established, and the weights of specific indicators of the government environmental performance index are determined by AHP and questionnaire method. The results of the weights of the indicators in the determined audit evaluation system are shown in Table 4. The highest weight values of the indicators of financial efficiency and green development quality in the guideline layer indicators are 0.333 and 0.373, respectively, which indicates that under the perspective of green development. Financial efficiency and green development are more important in the environmental audit process of the government of the Yangtze River Economic Zone. Among the financial efficiency indicators of the government environmental audit system, X13 “material and equipment procurement compliance rate” (0.126) and X12 “capital utilization rate” (0.103) have higher weight values. In the quality dimension of green development, the weights of indicators X32 “average annual concentration of nitrogen dioxide” and X34 “air quality” are relatively high, at 0.113 and 0.105 respectively.

Table 4.

Index weight

Audit dimension	Index weight	Concrete index	Index number	Index weight
Financial benefit	0.333	Funding rate	X11	0.007
		Capital utilization	X12	0.103
		Purchase of material equipment	X13	0.126
		Investment income	X14	0.064
		Internal income	X15	0.033
Green development pressure	0.135	Industrial nitrogen oxide emissions	X21	0.056
		Sulfur dioxide emissions	X22	0.035
		Industrial soot emissions	X23	0.044
Green development quality	0.373	Industrial nitrogen oxide emissions	X31	0.089
		Sulfur dioxide emissions	X32	0.113
		Industrial soot emissions	X33	0.066
		Air quality	X34	0.105
Green development governance	0.159	Number of punishment in administrative department	X41	0.027
		Public satisfaction	X42	0.076
		Sewage rate	X43	0.056

3.2.2

Audit evaluation results

This paper selects Hubei Province, which has more serious industrial pollution among the 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, as the audit object, based on the collection and analysis of the relevant information on the green development construction in Hubei Province from 2016 to 2022, combining with the relevant information on the green development construction of the Hubei Provincial Audit Bureau, visiting the Hubei Provincial Audit Bureau, interviewing the relevant staff, and visiting the field and communicating with the local people, and introducing the The information obtained was introduced into the evaluation index system of governmental environmental audit established earlier. Utilizing the variable-weighted hierarchical comprehensive evaluation method to audit and evaluate the government environment in Hubei Province, the audit evaluation results obtained are shown in Figure 2. In terms of financial efficiency, the actual audit evaluation score is 17.50 points, with a score degree of 70.00% (out of 25 points). Among them, the audit scores of X11 “funds in place” and X15 “financial internal rate of return” are higher, 3.75 and 3.91 respectively, which indicates that the Hubei Provincial Government has implemented a better effect on the rational and standardized use of funds related to green development. Specific implementing agencies and departments have established effective leadership and organizational structures, and the management of funds is in line with the corresponding norms. In the dimension of green development pressure, the total score is 9.53, from which it can be seen that the pressure of green development in Hubei Province during the period of 2016-2022 is at a medium level. Among the specific indicators, only X21 “Industrial NOx Emissions” scored 2.93, which is lower than 3, indicating that it is at a poor level, and the Hubei government’s work in regulating industrial NOx emissions is not satisfactory. Of the four dimensions of the audit system, the Hubei provincial government environment in the green development of the quality of the audit scored the lowest, 9.1 points, scoring only 60.67%, indicating that there are certain problems in the quality of green development. X41 “number of administrative penalty cases” only 2.53 points, the main reason is also due to the lack of relevant government departments, green development-related law enforcement and administrative staff is less, municipal-level administrative staff part-time multiple positions a number of policies. In the implementation of specific departments, most departments will be the policy on the meeting, the implementation of the competent leader to lead, to ensure that the green development policy system strong implementation. Supervision of the implementation of the regulatory level, supervision methods and supervision levels are relatively good, but the implementation of green development policies in the implementation process, the supervision effect is not ideal, some of the problems in the implementation of the late supervision or supervision is not in place of some of the requirements for rectification of green development-related issues can not be implemented in a timely manner to rectify the situation.

3.3

Analysis of the effectiveness of the application of the governmental environmental audit system

According to the results of the environmental audit evaluation of the government of Hubei Province, the province is supervised and rectified, and the effectiveness of the application of the government environmental audit system is explored by analyzing the financial situation of green development and the completion of pollution control in Hubei Province after the supervision and rectification. After forming the ideology of green development and environmental protection, the leading cadres of local governments at all levels in Hubei Province have the tendency to invest financial funds in ecological environmental protection and green development projects, continuously increase the technical support and financial and tax policy support for industrial pollution treatment and comprehensive utilization of resources, and increase investment in forestry and greening. Hubei Province’s financial expenditure during 2016-2024 is shown in Table 5, which can be seen from the rectification of Hubei Province in 2023 with the aid of the government’s environmental auditing system, the environmental protection expenditure increases year by year from 2023 to 2024. In 2023, Hubei Province continued to increase the construction of pollution prevention and green development, raising funds of 29.693 billion yuan to promote the “four three major ecological projects” and the Yangtze River Economic Belt “double ten” project. In terms of percentage, the share of environmental protection expenditure in the general budget expenditure of local finances has continued to grow from 2.13% to 3.84%, providing strong financial support for ecological protection and green development.

Table 5.

Fiscal expenditures in province Hubei

Year	Budget expenditure (Hundred dollars)	Environmental expenditure (Hundred dollars)	Environmental expenditure ratio (%)
2016	6064.98	129.18	2.13%
2017	6960.29	157.30	2.26%
2018	7777.49	178.88	2.30%
2019	7988.25	235.65	2.95%
2020	7998.11	243.14	3.04%
2021	8053.89	248.06	3.08%
2022	8251.57	287.15	3.48%
2023	8387.89	296.93	3.54%
2024	8986.86	345.10	3.84%

The completion of investment in industrial pollution management in Hubei Province from 2016 to 2024 is shown in Table 6, in which the completed investment in the management of solid waste project surged from 3.15 million yuan in 2016 to 312.15 million yuan in 2024, with an increase of 4975.61%. This shows that the application of the audit system influences the governance concepts of the leading cadres of the local government, forcing the government and enterprises to realize green governance and green development through environmental protection investment, scientific and technological innovation, and pollution management.

Table 6.

Industrial pollution control investment completed (10,000yuan)

Year	Industrial pollution control	Wastewater treatment project	Exhaust gas project	Governance solid waste	Control noise project	Other projects
2016	139226	12256	80849	615	201	12182
2017	140837	12406	83314	942	213	12916
2018	150022	13088	103356	4887	225	13830
2019	150054	15441	104716	5149	387	14369
2020	166745	16912	111467	16406	488	15311
2021	177897	17067	113761	17839	507	16414
2022	178613	19729	115112	26294	523	20426
2023	183307	20572	115855	27707	833	20631
2024	192324	22356	119813	31215	915	24539

4

Conclusion

This paper proposes a governmental environmental audit system under the perspective of green development, and utilizes the variable-weight hierarchical integrated evaluation method to audit and evaluate the governmental environment of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The total wastewater discharge of the 11 provinces in the Yangtze River Economic Belt in 2022 totaled 4,490,629,610,000 tons, accounting for 59.38% of China’s total wastewater discharge in 2023, which indicates that it is necessary to audit and rectify the government environment of the Yangtze River Economic Belt as soon as possible. For Hubei Province, where environmental pollution is more serious, as a typical case, the audit evaluation results found that the government environment in Hubei Province has the lowest audit score in terms of the quality of green development, which is 9.1 points, with a score of only 60.67%, indicating that there are certain problems in terms of the quality of green development. After the implementation of the audit system, the Hubei provincial government has stepped up supervision and rectification, and environmental protection expenditures will increase year by year from 2023 to 2024. In terms of percentage, the proportion of environmental protection expenditure in the general budget expenditure of local finance has continued to grow from 2.13% to 3.84%, providing strong financial support for ecological protection and green development.

The government environmental audit system constructed in this study is authoritative and mandatory, and can play a supervisory and evaluation function in government environmental governance, which is an important means to realize and implement green development.

Language:: English

Publication timeframe:: 1 times per year
Journal Subjects:: Life Sciences, Life Sciences, other, Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, General Mathematics, Physics, Physics, other

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Construction of Government Environmental Audit System in the Yangtze River Economic Belt under the Perspective of Green Development

Yun Qing

Mengyi Tang

Published Online: Mar 17, 2025

Received: Oct 14, 2024

Accepted: Feb 11, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amns-2025-0219

KeywordsBalanced scorecard theory, Audit system, Principal component analysis, Variable weight hierarchy evaluation, Government environment

© 2025 Yun Qing et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Keywords
Balanced scorecard theory, Audit system, Principal component analysis, Variable weight hierarchy evaluation, Government environment