New energy vehicles charge at a roadside charging station, which was specially built to facilitate green travel, in Huai’an City, Jiangsu Province, on Dec. 26, 2025. Photo: IC PHOTO

The Recommendations of the CPC Central Committee for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, calls for “steering the development of new quality productive forces” and “accelerating the green transition across the board.” As a fundamentally new form of productive forces distinct from traditional ones, new quality productive forces are inherently characterized by a strong green orientation.

Promoting green production relations, green modes of production and living

New quality productive forces promote the formation of production relations that are better aligned with green development. Productive forces and production relations together constitute an integrated whole of social production, with the contradictions and interactions between them serving as the fundamental driving force of social development. Productive forces determine production relations, while production relations must adapt to the development of productive forces. As Karl Marx pointed out in The Poverty of Philosophy, “In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations.” The emergence of a new form of productive forces therefore inevitably calls for production relations better suited to it, which in turn further advance the development of new quality productive forces.

New quality productive forces also contribute to the formation of green modes of production and living. The Report to the 20th CPC National Congress proposed that by 2035, China should “broadly establish eco-friendly ways of work and life.” Green production primarily refers to innovative, low-carbon, environmentally friendly, and sustainable modes of production that reduce energy and resource consumption as well as environmental pollution. Green lifestyles encompass eco-friendly concepts, consumption patterns, transportation choices, housing, and other aspects of daily life. The green transformation of development models requires the greening of production modes, and since modes of production shape modes of living, green production provides an important foundation for green lifestyles. In essence, green production aligns with green demand and green consumption. Building a green production system will enable the provision of more high-quality, environmentally friendly products and services, thereby offering both practical options and structural support for the realization of green lifestyles.

Demand-side drivers

Green lifestyles advocate green consumption and facilitate the formation of green and low-carbon modes of production. At present, China is vigorously promoting green consumption to foster green and low-carbon modes of production and living. Across areas such as clothing, food, housing, and transportation, consumer preferences and consumption structures are gradually shifting toward eco-friendly principles. Green consumption has become both a defining feature of green lifestyles and an important force reshaping production modes. When green transformation occurs in production technologies and factors of production, the various associated stages of production likewise undergo green upgrading. Overall, comprehensive green demand stimulates green and eco-friendly production, gives rise to a range of ecological industries, and thereby reinforces green development across the supply chain.

Green lifestyles also require cultivating green concepts and nurturing a new type of workforce for the development of new quality productive forces. A defining feature of new quality productive forces is the optimized integration and comprehensive upgrading of workers, means of labor, and objects of labor. Among the multiple dimensions in which new quality productive forces are “new,” the emergence of a new type of worker is particularly significant. The development of productive forces reflects the material exchange relationship between humanity and nature, and whether this relationship is rational directly determines the quality of productive forces. Ultimately, the development of social productive forces is expressed through practical human activity.

The advancement of new quality productive forces therefore first requires workers to internalize green principles, the cultivation of which is rooted in green lifestyles. By advocating low-carbon living, emphasizing the maintenance of ecological balance, and promoting harmonious development between humanity and nature, green lifestyles stimulate society’s endogenous motivation to protect its natural environment. Only in this way can a new type of eco-literate worker take shape, fostering green lifestyles through the green transformation of production practices.

Green lifestyles further call for the implementation of green education, guiding the public to accelerate the transition toward green consumption. The construction of an ecological civilization is also a profound transformation of beliefs and values, one that necessarily takes ecological education as a key focal point. Through ecological education, the main actors in building an ecological civilization can develop green awareness and adopt green lifestyles, thereby transforming traditional consumption patterns.

Traditional consumption models narrowly pursue the unrestrained expansion of volume—a fundamentally unsustainable, resource-intensive approach. Green consumption, by contrast, is essentially a form of sustainable consumption. It situates humanity and nature in a balanced and coordinated relationship, takes harmonious coexistence between the two as its ethical foundation, and emphasizes the protection and conservation of ecosystems. Accordingly, green consumption advocates simplicity and moderation. At the individual level, it reshapes patterns of demand; at the societal level, it drives the green transformation of the production system, driving supply-side change through demand-side forces.

Wang Yanping is from the Department of Philosophy at the Party School of the Heilongjiang Provincial Committee of C. P. C. (Heilongjiang Academy of Governance).