Ecological Civilization Construction Research Articles

Analysis The Impact and Mechanisms of Firms' ESG Performance on Their Financing Constraints--Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

ESG performance is a significant non-financial measure used to assess a company's environmental, social responsibility, and corporate governance. Its influence on a company's financing constraints has increasingly become a research focus in the field of sustainable development and ecological civilization construction. This paper explores the impacts and mechanisms of ESG performance on firms' own financing constraints, and finds that: the enhancement of firms' ESG performance can alleviate their own financing constraints; firms' enhancement of ESG performance can alleviate their own financing constraints through the channel of improving the firms' information transparency; firms' enhancement of ESG performance can alleviate their financing constraints more strongly in the samples with a high proportion of the entire majority shareholders' holdings and those from the eastern part of China.

New developments and trends in extended continental shelf delineation practices—An analysis of China's participation and response strategies

Rights and interests concerning the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles (extended continental shelf, ECS) are related to important aspects of a nation's marine utilization such as marine resource development, marine technological innovation, and the construction of marine ecological civilization. China is a country with a long coastline and has the right to delineate large areas of ECS according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). However, the process of confirming China's ECS rights under international law is particularly complicated owing to the complex maritime delineation disputes between China and its neighboring countries. From the perspective of international law, this study uses the method of historical analysis and case analysis to retrospectively explore the evolution of the international legal frameworks governing ECS and analyze its current characteristics and trends in practice. On this basis, the paper evaluates the major challenges of China's national practice in ECS delineation and puts forward suggested countermeasures for safeguarding its legitimate rights and interests related to ECS.

A Study on the Relationship between Urban Spatial Structure Evolution and Ecological Efficiency in Shandong Province

Strengthening the construction of ecological civilization is an inevitable requirement for promoting high-quality economic and social development. It is of great significance to study the evolutionary trend and relationship between urban spatial structure and ecological efficiency to promote high-quality social development. Taking Shandong Province as an example, this paper obtains data on urban factors such as points of interest, night light, number of employed people at the end of the year and water supply; uses Anselin Local Moran’s I index to identify urban centers; analyzes the distribution form characteristics and agglomeration degree of urban space; and studies the spatial distribution characteristics and causes of differences in ecological efficiency based on the Super-SBM DEA model with undesirable output. The results show that all cities in Shandong Province show an inverse S-shaped circle decreasing trend, Laiwu city has the highest compactness (compactness index is 2.96), and Tai ‘an city has the lowest compactness index of 0.04. The level of eco-efficiency in Shandong Province is “low in the west and high in the east”, and the difference in eco-efficiency between regions is increasing year by year. Urban compactness has a “first increasing and then decreasing” effect on eco-efficiency. Technological innovation and industrial structure narrow the spatial difference in eco-efficiency, and the level of economic development expands it to a certain extent. This study aims to fill the gaps in existing research. By analyzing data on the evolution of urban spatial structure and resource consumption, it will reveal the trends of changes in the urban spatial structure of Shandong Province and study the impact of these changes on ecological benefits.

Agricultural Production Efficiency and Ecological Transformation Efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Measuring the agricultural production efficiency (APE) and the ecological transformation efficiency (ETE) is key to agricultural modernization and regional ecological civilization construction. Based on the agricultural input–output dataset of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2000 to 2015, we use the panel stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) to measure the APE and ETE to explore the spatiotemporal patterns of regional APE and ETE from the geographical perspective. We rely on the quantitative association characteristics to explore the key threshold of ecological economic development in agriculture. The results show that: (1) In the study period, the APE increased from 0.2993 to 0.5495, indicating that the cumulative growth of the whole period was 83.60%, and the high-value units gradually changed from point distribution to spatial distribution; (2) Although the ETE of the YREB increased from 2000 to 2015, the proportion of the first-class species was still only 7.26% in 2015, and the inverted U-shaped polarization distribution characteristics of the high-efficiency cities and the band-like structure of global decision-making units were formed at the same time; (3) The improvement of ETE has obvious segment distribution and threshold crossing characteristics, and the APE is equal to 0.661, which is the threshold for high-speed growth and low-speed growth of ETE. The research framework, spatiotemporal rules and key thresholds have reference value for agricultural modernization and ecological civilization construction.

Practice of Xi Jinping's Ecological Civilization Thought Leading Wenzhou Ecology in the New Era

Under the guidance of Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought, the ecological practice of Wenzhou in the new era was deeply studied. With the help of literature analysis, this paper first summarizes the main content and importance of Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought, and points out that this thought is an important part of the development of Socialism with Chinese characteristics's great cause, with a strong background of the times and realistic orientation. Secondly, the article analyzes the main practice of ecological civilization construction in Wenzhou in the new era, and highlights the specific application of the concept of "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets", such as focusing on promoting the development of green industries and vigorously improving environmental quality. Thirdly, from the perspective of the combination of theory and practice, the article explains in detail how Wenzhou carries out its practice according to Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought, and thus reveals its internal logic and realization path. Finally, combining with Wenzhou's concrete practice, this paper deeply interprets the theoretical and practical significance of Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought in the new era. It is emphasized that adhering to and developing the idea of ecological civilization and promoting the construction of ecological civilization is an important path to promote the all-round development of economy and society and realize the goal of a well-off society in an all-round way. Generally speaking, this study comprehensively and deeply discusses the problem that Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought leads Wenzhou's ecological practice in the new era from the two dimensions of theory and practice, which has strong theoretical guidance and practical reference value.

Identification and analysis of influencing factors of green mining construction based on DPSIR model and Fuzzy-DEMATEL approach

Green mining construction (GMC) is a sustainable mining development model with the potential of realizing synergistic development of resources, environment, society, and economy. At present, the green mining strategy has yielded some successes, but there is still a significant gap between theoretical research and practical promotion, owing to the complexity of the green mining system and the diversity of influencing factors. Therefore, in the context of current pressure to normalize environmental protection, how to promote the construction of green mines while taking into account the premise of economic development has become an important issue. Inspired by the form of Drive-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) model, this paper constructs a DPSIR model of the driving mechanism of green mining construction. Using the fuzzy-DEMATEL method, each critical factor and influencing mechanism of GMC is explored, and the network relationship of the critical factors is established. The results show that many factors affect GMC from the perspective of the ecological environment, and 11 critical factors are obtained in varying degrees. Among them, green technology and supervision and long-term mechanism are the most important and influencing factors. Based on the transmission mechanism among these factors, improvement suggestions, and specific strategies are put forward. This research effectively identifies and analyzes the critical factors of GMC from the perspective of driving and response mechanisms, which is helpful to support the construction of ecological civilization and the sustainable development of mining industry.

Does environmental management system certification affect green innovation performance?-Based on a moderated mediating effects model.

What is the impact of environmental management system certification on green innovation performance, and is it a futile endeavor or a profitable one? Grounded in the principles of ecological civilization construction and green development, this study embarks on a comprehensive examination. Initially, it investigates the varying impacts of environmental management system certification on both traditional innovation performance and green innovation performance. Subsequently, it dissects the underlying mechanisms and moderating factors influencing the latter, including an exploration of intermediary effects. The empirical findings of this study are as follows: (i) Environmental management system certification emerges as a catalyst for innovation performance, with the primary impact observed in the realm of green innovation performance. (ii) Social responsibility disclosure is identified as a mediating factor in the relationship between environmental management system certification and green innovation performance. (iii) Larger enterprises, those equipped with robust equity incentives, and those operating in less competitive markets are more prone to benefit from the impact of environmental management system certification on social responsibility disclosure. This, in turn, amplifies the promotion of green innovation performance. However, the moderating effect of property rights on the mediating path remains statistically insignificant. (iv) Environmental management system certification exerts a more pronounced influence on green innovation performance in regions characterized by lower economic development. Moreover, it particularly stimulates exploratory green innovation performance, surpassing its impact on exploitative green innovation performance.

Heading towards carbon neutrality: how do marine carbon sinks serve as important handle for promoting marine ecological civilization construction?

As an efficient long-term carbon sink, marine carbon sinks and the associated carbon sink effects, technology, accounting and trading market construction warrant investigation across various disciplines. However, information on the interrelationships and their development over time with respect to the research conducted in China is limited, affecting the ability to drive research directions and optimize continued advancement in this field. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to understand the current situation of marine carbon sink research in China to promote a deeper level of scientific development based on the research literature related to marine blue carbon sinks in the core databases of the China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI) and Web of Science (WOS). We used bibliometric tools in the Citespace software to quantitatively compare and analyse the main characteristics of marine blue carbon sink research including publication volume, time, journals, authors and institutions. We also explored the popular research topics, frontier areas, and theme evolution trends through keyword clustering and emergent and co-occurring knowledge maps. The key recommended research directions for ocean carbon sinks are: (1) to promote the unified carbon sink market research of land and sea integration through multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research; (2) to achieve new breakthroughs in ocean carbon sinks with the support of coastal wetlands and seawater offshore aquaculture environments; (3) to explore the protection provided by ocean carbon sinks with a comprehensive eco-compensation mechanism; (4) to improve the application of marine carbon sinks by taking the theory and technological innovation research related to marine carbon sinks as the guide. Ultimately, our work helps characterise the current situation of marine carbon sink research, promote the research in this field to a deeper level of development and provide reference for subsequent scholars to carry out related research.

Research on the Relationship Between ESG Rating and Stock Pricing

Nowadays, the development of green industries is the focus of Chinese ecological civilization construction and the main growth point of China's economic development. As an important evaluation index, Emotional, Social and Governance(ESG) rating can not only reflect the development quality of listed enterprises, but also promote corporate social responsibility. At the same time, ESG will convert external costs in the production process of the enterprise into internal costs, affecting the resource allocation of the enterprise, and guiding the enterprise to adopt corresponding sustainable strategies and plans. Therefore, this article focuses on the relationship between ESG and stock pricing ratings. The data in this paper comes from the Wind database and the relevant data of listed companies in the stock market from 2018 to 2022 from the CSMAR database, and through the fixed-effects model, it is concluded that the relationship between corporate ESG and the price-to-book ratio of their stocks is inversely correlated.

Balancing low-carbon and eco-friendly development: coordinated development strategy for land use carbon emission efficiency and land ecological security.

Correctly identifying and handling the relationship between land use carbon emission efficiency (LUCEE) and land ecological security (LES) are important to promote carbon neutrality in the overall layout of ecological civilization construction. This study takes 30 provinces in China as the research unit and measures the level of LUCEE and LES in each province in the period from 2011 to 2020 via a super-efficient slack-based measure model considering undesirable output. The coupling coordination degree (CCD) of LUCEE and LES is calculated, and its spatiotemporal evolution pattern is explored by kernel density estimation and standard deviational ellipse (SDE). The Dagum Gini coefficient is used to study spatial regional differences and the sources of differences. Results show that (1) China's LUCEE exhibited a downward and then an upward trend, as well as a spatial pattern of "high in the west and low in the east" with obvious regional differences. The LES experienced a positive transformation of "less secure → basically secure → more secure" nationwide, with no apparent regional differences. (2) The kernel density curves showed a continuous increase in CCD in general, while interprovincial differences increased, then decreased, and shifted from multipolar to bipolar differentiation. (3) The migration of SDE centers in CCD demonstrated a path of "southeast → southwest → northeast," and the ellipticity increased from 0.167 to 0.173, showing a trend of concentrated distribution. (4) The overall Gini coefficient of the national CCD indicated a decreasing trend, but imbalances remained, with the largest annual average value in the western region (0.120) and the smallest in the northeast (0.044). The main source of regional disparity was the intensity of transvariation. Accordingly, this study proposes targeted regional development strategies to promote low-carbon sustainable land use and improve the ability of land ecosystems to prevent security risks.

Thoughts on the Practical Teaching Reform of Ecology Major in the New Era of Ecological Civilization

Ecological civilization construction is an important part of China's "five-in-one" construction goal, and ecology teaching is an important highland for the promotion and construction of ecological civilization. However, the employment of ecology professionals in China is not ideal at present. On the basis of analyzing the problems faced in the training of ecology professionals, this paper puts forward some ideas for the reform of the practical teaching of ecology undergraduate majors in view of the weak link of practical teaching, aiming to provide the innovative training of students and the construction of ecology majors.

Towards ecosystem-based management in Chinese coastal areas: Judgement criteria for water-passable structure based on permeability

China is actively building intelligent oceans to develop the marine economy and protect the ecological environment. Over the past 30 years, China has developed a large number of marine projects for economic development, such as sea reclamation, the establishment of water-passable or water-impassable jetties, dykes, and approach bridges. To reduce the impact on marine hydrodynamics and the ecological environment, China has banned most of its sea-enclosing activities, and water-passable structures are more and more developed and applied in practical projects in China. However, there are no clear judgment criteria for the definition of water-passable structures, and there is a lack of reference for the criteria in the management and development of water-passable structures. This has led to mismanagement, such as the fact that sea enclosures that have a subtle permeability but have a significant impact on the marine environment have been judged to be water-passable structures, which has harmed the marine ecosystem. At the same time, the foundation of the intelligent ocean includes comprehensive access to information on sea-related activities (ocean management, resource development, ecological civilization construction, etc.), and the lack of uniform determination standards makes the information on offshore structures mixed and makes it impossible to establish a standardized management system, which is not conducive to the further development of the intelligent ocean. To put forward the judgment criteria of water-passable structures, this paper establishes a conceptualized hydrodynamic model of linear shaped structures offshore China by analyzing actual data from a survey. According to the simulation results, in typical cases, based on the principle of ecological priority and strict control, this study suggests that linear shaped structures with a permeability greater than or equal to 70% should be recognized as water-passable linear shaped structures, and those with permeability less than 70% should be recognized as water-impassable linear shaped structures. The judgment criteria of water-passable linear shaped structures from the perspective of permeability can help the development and management of water-passable structures in Chinese coastal areas (e.g., sea area use demonstration) to be more accurately carried out, to protect the marine ecological environment and to realize sustainable development. At the same time, it provides a reference basis for China to further build a unified management method for marine structures and promotes the construction of the Chinese intelligent ocean.

Paysages culturels chinois: de l’idéal de l’équilibre entre l’homme et la nature aux formes écologiques de la vie

Abstract: Thus far, human development has been achieved at the cost of the destruction of cultural landscapes. With advent of industrial civilization, people have gained happiness and conveniences, but also confronted various cultural landscape predicaments. Environmental philosophy, a contemporary philosophy that regards the relationship between humans and nature as a fundamental issue, has focused on the protection of cultural landscapes. An analysis of ancient Chinese environmental philosophy demonstrates that ancient thinkers cared about everything in heaven and earth, and explored issues, such as a harmonious development between humans and nature, offering a novel approach to the preservation of Chinese cultural landscapes. Using Taoist environmental philosophy as an exemplar, this article provides a preliminary analysis of the definition of cultural landscapes, development of environmental philosophy and Taoist environmental philosophy. Building upon this foundation, it explores the role of environmental philosophies, such as “unity of heaven and man” in construction of ecological civilization, providing fresh perspectives for cultural landscape conservation.

Study on Improving the Mechanism for Assessing and Realizing the Value of Forest Ecological Products in Fujian Province

Abstract The key to grasping and practicing the important concept of “green mountains are golden mountains” is to internalize the construction of ecological civilization into the operation mechanism of the market economy and to stimulate the endogenous motivation of the whole society to engage in the construction of ecological civilization. The study focuses on the value of forest ecological products in Fujian Province and evaluates these products from four perspectives: support services, regulating services, supply services, and cultural services. Subsequently, we constructed the suitability evaluation index system for the realization mode of forest ecological product value in Fujian Province. We weighted the indexes by combining the entropy value method and the expert scoring method, and evaluated the suitability of the realization mode using the structural equation model. The suitability assessment results show that Zhouning County, Ningde City - ecological compensation > Shunchang County, Nanping City - ecological tenure trading > Changting County, Longyan City - ecological restoration > Jiangle County, Sanming City - ecological industrialization model. The regression estimates of ecological product production potential factor (β=0.221, p<0.001), ecological environment constraints (β=0.145, p<0.05), social environment constraints (β=0.178, p<0.001), and regression estimation of the realization of the value of the ecological products of forests in Fujian Province are significant. The mechanism for integrating synergy and coordination, localization, and differentiation for the realization of sustainable forest ecological product value has been improved.

Analysis of Sustainable Development Path of Rural Tourism in Yantai Based on Ecological Civilization Construction

Analysis of Sustainable Development Path of Rural Tourism in Yantai Based on Ecological Civilization Construction

The Path Towards Green Transformation in Hainan's Manufacturing Sector

Under the inevitable choice of China's "dual carbon" strategy and ecological civilization construction, Hainan Province's free trade port adheres to green development. The green transformation of manufactory in Hainan Province is also active. Green transformation is influenced by multiple factors and involves the entire manufacturing cycle. Thus, this article first sorted out the 31 major categories of manufacturing in Hainan, calculated the average energy consumption of manufacturing enterprises above a certain scale, and obtained the basic situation of manufacturing enterprises in Hainan Province. This article also uses literature review to analyze the specific path of green transformation in Hainan Province's manufacturing industry from three aspects: government policies, industrial structure, and energy consumption. The research results found that there is a clear trend of green transformation in the manufacturing industry in Hainan Province. This article suggests that Hainan Province should expand the positive impact of policies such as free trade ports, promote digital and intelligent development, and continuously adjust industrial institutions.

Policy evolution and enlightenment of Japan’s forest healthcare industry

Japan’s forest healthcare industry has developed rather early in the world, and has gone through three stages: formation of conditions, active exploration stage and vigorous development stage. The writer , as from a country which started forest healthcare industry only ten years ago, and faces many problems, especially in the government’s policies, tries to explore Japan’s policies in different stages through interviews with the experts and reading the documents, and tries to find the Enlightenment of Japan’s forest healthcare industry to China. The author finds, Japanese government has adopted a series of policies and regulations to support the development of the forest healthcare industry, such as forest laws and forest park system, promotion of the concept of forest bathing, construction of forest therapy bases and the professionalization of talents, and forest tourism The Japanese government’s policies has several inspirations for China: firstly, strengthening research on forest efficacy, establishing and popularizing the concept of forest healthcare, and promoting the professional talent training and qualification certificate system, promoting the standardization of China’s forest healthcare industry development, and assisting in the implementation of the national strategy of healthy China and ecological civilization construction.

Synergistic development path of ecological civilization construction and rural revitalization

Abstract The core strategy for national development in the new era is the establishment of an ecological civilization. In contrast, the overall understanding of the three concerns facing rural communities in the new era is the rural revitalization strategy. The paper examines the present state of the linkage development between constructing an ecological civilization and implementing a rural revitalization strategy in rural areas. It does this by developing an evaluation index system and drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of the linkage development between the two strategies (rural revitalization strategy and ecological civilization construction). The entropy value approach is used to compute the comprehensive index and determine the weights of each index. The coupling and coordination degree models are used to measure the coordination degree and coupling correlation of the two, and the correlation factors between them are analyzed by constructing the gray correlation model. The findings indicate that overall, County A’s rural revitalization development level between 2012 and 2021 tends to be better, although overall levels are not very high. The comprehensive index of development for rural revitalization goes from 0.194 in 2012 to 0.754 in 2021. Yearly fluctuations in ecological civilization-building are evident, with the complete index of ecological civilization construction rising from 0.380 in 2012 to 0.945 in 2021. The overall trend is slowly increasing when the coupling coordination degree of 0.610 from 2015 is taken as a limit, but high-quality coordination is still a significant distance away.

Research on the Path of Rural Revitalization Driven by the Double Wheel of Digital Transformation and Ecological Civilization Construction

Research on the Path of Rural Revitalization Driven by the Double Wheel of Digital Transformation and Ecological Civilization Construction

Spatio-temporal variations of vegetation cover in semi-arid regions and its response to climate change: A case study of Xilin Gol, Inner Mongolia, China

The quantitative analysis of spatio-temporal variations of vegetation cover and its correlation with climate are of great significance for understanding of ecological environment, ecological civilization construction, and sustainable development in semi-arid areas. We investigated the spatio-temporal variations of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and its response to climate change during 2000-2020 in Xilin Gol, Inner Mongolia, by using trend analysis, regression analysis and partial correlation analysis based on the data of MODIS-NDVI, tempe-rature, precipitation, digital elevation model. The results showed that vegetation cover in Xilin Gol had been increased from 2000 to 2020, which generally included three phases, i.e., stable fluctuation, rapid growth, and steady growth. The mean NDVI showed a zonal increasing distribution from southwest to northeast, and had a strong correlation with elevation and population density in Xilin Gol region. The high values of NDVI were mainly in the east, with a significant increasing trend, and the low values were in the southwest, with a local degradation. The sensitivity of vegetation cover to climate change showed spatial and temporal variations. The spatial variation of vegetation was more sensitive to temperature and the interannual variation was sensitive to annual precipitation. In summary, vegetation cover improved overall in Xilin Gol, but there was degradation in some areas. We should formulate differentiated and precise vegetation restoration and ecological environmental protection policies.