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the "opinions on accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development" issued by the central committee of the communist party of china and the state council proposed that we should increase the supply of green products, guide enterprises to carry out green design, select green materials, promote green manufacturing, adopt green packaging, carry out green transportation, and recycle resources to reduce energy and resource consumption and ecological environmental impact throughout the product life cycle. at the same time, we should actively expand green consumption and improve the green consumption incentive mechanism.

under the guidance of national policies, promoting green and low-carbon economic and social development has also become a common practice for many consumer goods manufacturers and platform companies. by creating more new green consumption scenarios, building a new industrial ecological chain, acting together with suppliers, innovating green solutions, launching green consumption platforms, formulating an environmentally friendly product system, and establishing a green consumption reward mechanism, with the joint efforts of many parties, the "green" tide of the consumer market has surged, igniting a new engine for economic development.

green consumption brings new opportunities for high-quality economic development

green consumption refers to consumer behavior characterized by saving resources and protecting the environment. it encourages consumers to choose products and services that have little impact on the environment, consume low resources, or focus on the rational disposal and recycling of waste.

"promoting green consumption is an important measure to implement the concept of green development. it is also the whole society's yearning and pursuit for a friendly natural environment and a sustainable lifestyle." at the green innovation driving new consumer vitality insights forum held at the bund conference recently, ant group senior vice president and chief sustainability officer peng yijie said that green consumption is not a simple shopping behavior. it connects and affects all aspects of the industrial chain, including design, production, energy consumption, packaging, logistics, and recycling. it requires the joint efforts of the whole society and the entire ecology.

du huanzheng, director of the institute of ecological civilization and circular economy at tongji university, said that green consumption contains new directions and new opportunities for high-quality economic development. promoting green consumption is a systematic project that requires building an emerging industrial ecological chain and achieving green transformation at the raw material and production ends. at the same time, a closed-loop circulation system should be created in the logistics system and post-consumer recycling links. in addition, it is necessary to strengthen green consumption education and guidance and promote the construction of an industry standard system.

as far as consumer brands are concerned, it is necessary to improve the quality, efficiency and diversity of green products, reduce costs and prices, enhance market competitiveness, and meet the multi-level needs of consumers; it is necessary to create a green brand image, strengthen green consumption education and guidance for consumers, and stimulate consumers' green consumption awareness and demand; it is necessary to use information technology to establish an information traceability mechanism for green products, provide convenient origin traceability, quality verification and waste disposal services, so that consumers can clearly understand the comprehensive information of green products, enhance consumer trust and satisfaction, and cooperate with governments, social organizations and other parties to jointly promote the improvement of green consumption systems, policies and institutions, form a co-governance pattern for green consumption, and gather joint efforts for green consumption.

"promoting consumers' recognition and choice of green and low-carbon products will push forward the green transformation of the industry, and establishing a green consumption incentive mechanism for ordinary consumers is of far-reaching significance." du huanzheng said, "but consumers often face problems such as long identification paths, difficulty in understanding green logic, and difficulty in connecting with people who agree with them when choosing environmentally friendly products and services."

wang wenhua, deputy secretary-general of the china chain store association, also believes that there are currently two major obstacles to promoting green consumption: first, there is a lack of standards for identifying environmentally friendly products on the channel side, which makes it difficult for consumers to identify green products; second, there is insufficient communication between consumer brands and consumers, and there is room for improvement in green marketing innovation. it is necessary to tell the stories behind green products well and achieve empathy and co-creation with consumers.

the whole ecosystem participates in green transformation

cultivating new driving forces for consumption

in order to eliminate the pain points of green consumption promotion, ant group, together with more than 80 first-batch brands, launched the country's first green consumption platform "forest market" to popularize green consumption knowledge and promote environmentally friendly products and services on september 6. the platform not only explored and formulated an "environmentally friendly product system", but also established a corresponding green consumption incentive mechanism to advocate a simple, moderate, green and low-carbon lifestyle, and encourage consumers to choose more green and low-carbon products and services, such as buying expired food to reduce food waste, purchasing "replacement packs" to reduce plastic use, and exchanging old appliances for new ones for recycling, etc., to obtain "green energy" rewards from ant forest.

"consumers don't have to be experts in knowing whether the goods and services provided by brands and sold on the platform are green or not, and what the green logic behind them is. based on ant forest's eight-year practice of promoting green and sustainable development, forest market has lowered the threshold for consumers to understand professional and complex green logic with "green energy", an incentive medium that is already familiar to the public. at the same time, through the "environmentally friendly product system", it "packages" many green standards and industry specifications covering the entire life cycle of products in different industries and categories to ensure the green attributes of the goods and services on the platform. in addition, ant forest has brought together hundreds of millions of users who identify with green and low-carbon and pay attention to environmental protection over the past eight years, and everyone is a consumer." du huanzheng said that "one reduction, one package, and one gathering" will enable forest market to play an industry-leading and exemplary role as a green consumption platform.

"the products that enter the 'forest market' must first be selected through the 'environmentally friendly product system'. this system is designed in accordance with the six dimensions of green design, green materials, green manufacturing, green packaging, green transportation, and recycling in the opinions on accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development." xue jinghua, deputy director of the climate business department of the china environmental certification center (cec), said that products and services that are included in the national green manufacturing list, meet national green-related industry standards, obtain international and domestic green-related certifications, or have environmental protection and carbon reduction attributes can be accepted and included in the ant forest "environmentally friendly product system". this system allows consumers to easily and quickly identify products with green attributes, which not only lowers the threshold for consumers to understand complex professional concepts, but also helps the industry actively promote the green transformation of its products and services.

it is understood that the platform can be entered by searching for "forest market" on alipay. during the trial operation period, more than 8.3 million people have visited the platform in three months. more than 80 well-known domestic and foreign brands such as yili, mengniu, lux, liby, and blue moon have settled in the platform. currently, there are more than 3,600 environmentally friendly products available for consumers to choose from.

in addition to working together to build a green consumption platform, many brands are also practicing the concept of green development in various ways to promote the potential of green consumption.

"nike sells 150 million pairs of sneakers in china every year, and the traditional method of incinerating and landfilling old shoes causes great pollution to the environment. how to deal with sales waste is an issue that nike has always been concerned about." chang yuan, vice president of supply chain for nike greater china, said that for this reason, nike and its partners have worked together to explore a number of innovative green solutions.

"for example, we have cooperated with tongji university to develop old shoe recycling technology, and processed old shoes recovered from consumers. the utilization rate of a pair of old shoes has also increased from 30% to 80%. these materials are used in the construction of environmentally friendly stadiums. nike has pledged to build 100 environmentally friendly sports fields by 2023 and to achieve a 10-fold increase in post-consumer waste recycling by 2025. in addition, we have cooperated with alipay to launch a green after-sales service platform to optimize the return and recycling experience, and to encourage green choices with green energy. for example, consumers put 100 million pairs of old shoes in nike recycling bins and then scan the ant forest applet to receive 1,300 grams of green energy, which is very considerable." chang yuan introduced.

the dairy industry in which yili is located spans the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, from the cultivation of fodder, the breeding of dairy cows, production and processing to distribution and logistics services. it is also leading upstream and downstream partners in the industry chain to reduce carbon emissions. xu ke, vice president of yili group, introduced that in terms of promoting green production, yili group officially released the "zero carbon future" plan in 2022, and will achieve carbon neutrality across the entire industry chain by 2050. at present, yili has built 4 "zero-carbon factories" and nearly 80 factories around the world. it has jointly issued 13 low-carbon national standards and group standards, and 41 factories have won the title of "national green factory". it has also jointly created a "zero carbon alliance" with 88 global strategic partners, and 80% of the members of the zero carbon alliance have achieved low-carbon transformation.

to create more choices for green consumption, yili has also launched 5 "zero-carbon products", among which "jinlingguan sennamu" organic milk powder is the first zero-carbon organic milk powder in china, and each can can reduce 8.8 kg of carbon emissions. in terms of green packaging, in june this year, yili launched the jindian low-carbon environmentally friendly packaging product. the inner packaging cardboard is fsc-certified to support sustainable forest management, and the outer packaging is also made of kraft paper packaging that reduces ink. in addition, the jindian brand's "empty bottle return public welfare plan" encourages consumers to participate, and the recycled empty milk cartons are processed into artificial bird nests to protect endangered birds in grassland wetlands.

□ our reporter li zichen