Users rent bikes with a mobile app at Jinan, capital city of Shandong Province on Feb. 11, 2017. The popularity of mobile bike rental services is an example of people’s increasing willingness to engage in green consumption. 

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Guidelines for promoting green consumption in China were jointly released last year by several departments of the nation’s central government, demonstrating China’s commitment to tackling environmental pollution.

Green consumption differs in emphasis from such similar concepts as ecological, low-carbon or sustainable consumption, but they share the core value of conserving resources and protecting the environment, said Wang Jianming, a professor of business administration from Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics.

The constant growth of consumption has always been accompanied by increasing pressure on resources and the environment. Traditional economic growth abides by the iron law that material consumption grows as the economy grows, said Zhu Dajian, director of the Sustainable Development and New-type Urbanization Think Tank at Tongji University.

Green consumption may break this rule because one threshold theory of the relationship between utility satisfaction and material consumption shows that, in the primary phase, utility satisfaction increases simultaneously with the growth of material consumption. Once it has passed the threshold, this relationship becomes uncoupled, and material consumption does not necessarily increase utility, Zhu said, adding that green consumption, in essence, aims to transform material consumption into the pursuit of high quality of life.

Green consumption emphasizes ecological protection during the entire process of production, distribution, circulation and consumption, said Ma Ruijing, an associate professor of business administration from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. Green consumption will conserve resources, reduce pollution, improve the environment and promote economic development, she said.

Wang agreed, saying green consumption will force enterprises to pursue green production while society will be encouraged to pursue green management. At the same time, it will promote profound changes in values and social culture, he said.

One major point of green consumption is to transform the consumption model of the industrial age, which aims to provide individual possessions, to one of the ecological age, which seeks to provide satisfaction with services, Zhu said. Green consumption may be realized in two ways: reduced consumption and alternative consumption. The former refers to changing preferences, such as switching to low-emission vehicles. The latter refers to alternative forms of consumption, such as using public transit rather than private vehicles.

China’s research on green consumption is still weak. Ma said the scholars today mostly focus on empirical analysis of the factors affecting people’s willingness to adopt green consumption. Studies on transforming willingness into action are what matters most in guiding green consumption in practice, Ma said. In addition, promoting sustainable green consumption also requires future attention, she added.

Developing green consumption is not only a means to alleviate the pressure on resources and the environment but also a prerequisite for the establishment of an ecological civilization. Zhu said studies in two aspects require future efforts. Investigations on people’s willingness to adopt green consumption practices in daily life may shed light on the status quo of green consumption domestically. Also, China’s development model is transforming from one driven by production to consumption, and scholars lack experience in this situation, Zhu said.

Green consumption research in China should take into account China’s fundamental national realities as well as the experience and lessons of consumer society in Western countries, Zhu said.

 

 

 

ZHANG JIE is a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.