It is critical to develop sustainable approaches to growing more grain yield while reducing environmental pressure. The high-low seedbed cultivation (HLSC) pattern can enhance crop productivity in the semi-humid North China Plain (NCP), but comprehensive assessments of its advantages from economic, energy, and environmental perspectives relative to traditional cultivation (TC) are still limited. Therefore, two-site field experiments with two cultivation patterns (i.e., HLSC and TC), one for 3-years (2017–2020 wheat season) and another for 2-years (2020–2022 wheat season), were performed to determine the economic benefits, energy balance and carbon footprint (CF) in the NCP. Results showed that, on average, the HLSC pattern exhibited 16.2 ± 6.3 % higher grain yield, 27.5 ± 13.1 % higher biomass yield, and 61.0 ± 23.7 % higher net profit over the TC pattern. Meanwhile, the HLSC have obviously increased net energy (28.8 ± 13.9 %), energy use efficiency (24.8 ± 12.2 %), and energy input intensity (14.7 ± 6.3 %), while decreased specific energy (15.3 ± 4.8 %). Furthermore, the CF per grain yield and biomass yield under HLSC decreased by 10.9 ± 5.6 % and 20.5 ± 4.5 % relative to the TC, respectively. The results suggest that HLSC is a promising wheat cultivation practices to cater to the demands of crop production with environmental sustainability in the NCP.