Measuring the CO2 shadow price for wastewater treatment: A directional distance function approach

Abstract The estimation of the value of carbon emissions has become a major research and policy topic since the establishment of the Kyoto Protocol. The shadow price of CO2 provides information about the marginal abatement cost of this pollutant. It is an essential element in guiding environmental policy issues, since the CO2 shadow price can be used when fixing carbon tax rates, in environmental cost-benefit analysis and in ascertaining an initial market price for a trading system. The water industry could play an important role in the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper estimates the shadow price of CO2 for a sample of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), using a param…