Government Environmental Audits and Pollution Control Performance: A Comparative Analysis of Hebei, Guangdong, and Zhejiang

Government environmental audits play a critical role in strengthening ecological governance and supporting China’s “dual-carbon” objectives. This study evaluates the pollution control performance of Hebei, Guangdong, and Zhejiang Provinces from 2013 to 2022 through the lens of government environmental auditing. Based on the PSR (Pressure-State-Response) framework, an audit-oriented evaluation index system was constructed and weighted using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Grey relational analysis (GRA) was then employed to calculate provincial performance scores and examine temporal trends. The results show that all three provinces exhibit an overall upward trend in pollution prevention and control performance, although with clear regional disparities. Zhejiang performs consistently well, achieving “excellent” ratings after 2020, while Guangdong shows steady improvement with periodic fluctuations. Hebei, despite high investment in pollution-control funding, demonstrates limited progress and remains under the greatest environmental pressure. These findings reveal that environmental governance performance is not strictly proportional to financial input, and that administrative capacity, industrial structure, and policy implementation intensity play decisive roles. The study contributes new comparative evidence on regional differences in the effectiveness of government environmental audits and offers policy implications for enhancing pollution control and achieving low-carbon development goals.