Pushing forward green development is an important means and inevitable choice for ensuring the people’s wellbeing.

In recent years, environmental issues have come to the fore as the world struggles to cope with pollution, industrial waste, climate change and other ecological crises. One popular solution is to carry out green development based on China’s actual conditions. A good environment is one of the most valuable public goods and can raise the people’s quality of life.

Green development is a new lifestyle that is conducive to people’s comprehensive development. Built upon green, low-carbon concepts, it ensures that equal emphasis is placed on development of the economy, the environment and the public standard of living.

Green development can provide an open, efficient and multifunctional public good that allows everyone to enjoy nature in its pristine state. Stressing the necessity of respecting and protecting nature, it aims to help promote economic, political, cultural and social construction. Thus, pushing forward green development is an important means and inevitable choice for ensuring the people’s wellbeing.

Green development must be realized based on an innovative evaluation mechanism. For a long time, GDP was practically the sole criterion for evaluating the performance of local officials. As environmental problems grow more severe and the population tests the capacity of the environment to support it, it is becoming increasingly apparent that this method is unacceptable.

Recently, differential classification assessments have been implemented in some areas to motivate leaders and cadres to push forward green development. An evaluation index that is effective and easy to put into practice must be formulated as soon as possible. Leaders can be selected and promoted according to their objectively quantifiable contributions to green development.

Green development should be safeguarded through legal construction. Environmental resources have been taxed for a long time. The means of rule of law is needed to ensure green development. For example, the punishment of harm to the environment should be strengthened to increase costs of violating the law. Education in green development must be intensified to form a good social atmosphere.

At present, laws and regulations have been promulgated in some areas, such as ecological compensation of major river basins, forests and wetlands. The guarantees offered by rule of law in such fields as “environmental finance,” green credit and green insurance have been consolidated.

Advanced experience can be used as a reference to guide green development. Green consumption, which aims to achieve sustainability, is an important aspect of green development. Some foreign concepts and methods regarding green consumption can offer a path forward for China as it strives to pursue green development, such as using new media platforms to disseminate green culture, integrating the concept of green consumption into industry, architecture, costume design and all fields in life, encouraging the purchase of green consumer goods, boosting the exploitation and consumption of green homes and new energy automobiles, advocating green travel, and building green recycling systems.

Only by establishing a good atmosphere of green consumption in the whole society can green development be rooted in China and become a scientific concept and guideline for achieving sustainable development.

Yang Hai is from the Party School of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.