Introduction  The concurrent stress of pollution emissions and energy consumption resulting from high-intensity human activities directly affect the high-quality development of cities. However, assessing the pressure and status of urban development comprehensively proves challenging through traditional single environment carrying capacity or energy carrying capacity. With a case study of the city of Dongguan, a new industrialized city in Guangdong province, as an example, the paper evaluated the environment and energy compound carrying capacity, and put forward targeted suggestions for the development of Dongguan by exploring the influencing factors.

  Method  Based on the idea of pressure-state-response analysis, the paper constructed an evaluation index system of environment and energy compound carrying capacity by selecting 19 evaluation indicators from two systems of social economy and environment and energy. The weights of the evaluation indicators were determined by the hierarchical analysis method and standardized to achieve a high degree of comparability. The relative affiliation of samples was calculated using the variable fuzzy evaluation method to reflect the dynamic changes of the indicators.

  Result  The results of this study show that the environment and energy compound carrying capacity of Dongguan increased from 0.10 to 0.77 from 2005 to 2021, indicating an improving trend driven by the strengthening of environmental governance and the improvement of energy efficiency. To improve the environment and energy compound carrying capacity in Dongguan, attention should be paid to the shortage of water resources, the reduction of forest land coverage, and the strengthening of municipal construction and operation.

  Conclusion  The environment and energy compound carrying capacity evaluation system constructed in the paper effectively reflects the synergistic changes of water environmental carrying capacity and energy carrying capacity, providing a reference for the study of sustainable urban development and the evolution of urban environment and energy.