Mei Yingdan: Theoretical Contributions and Practical Paths for Realizing the Value of Ecological Products
The realization of the value of ecological products is a core component of the first volume of the Selected Environmental Works of Xi Jinping. It represents a significant manifestation of the concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" [1] and serves as a key path toward promoting the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature. In the first volume of the Selected Environmental Works of Xi Jinping, the section titled "Systematically Carrying out Ecological Environmental Protection and Restoration to Build a Green Development Demonstration Belt" provides a profound explanation of this topic, noting that we must "accelerate the establishment of a mechanism to realize the value of ecological products, ensuring that the protection and restoration of the ecological environment receive reasonable returns, while those who damage the ecological environment pay a corresponding price." Furthermore, the section "Promoting Green Development and Enhancing the Harmonious Coexistence of Humanity and Nature" points out the need to "establish a mechanism for realizing the value of ecological products and improving the system of compensation for ecological protection." These important discourses provide the fundamental compliance for ecological civilization construction in the New Era, representing a major innovation where Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and Xi Jinping Thought on Economy converge. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the concept "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets," a profound grasp of the theoretical contributions and practical paths for realizing the value of ecological products will help accelerate the comprehensive green transition of economic and social development and the construction of a Beautiful China, injecting green momentum into Chinese-path modernization.
The realization of the value of ecological products is a major theoretical innovation of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization
The realization of the value of ecological products aims to activate the wealth-creating power of nature through institutional design, harvesting "invaluable assets" (gold and silver mountains) while safeguarding "lucid waters and lush mountains." This carries significant theoretical innovative meaning.
It innovates and develops the Marxist view of ecology, pointing out the scientific path for transforming "lucid waters and lush mountains" into "invaluable assets."
While classical Marxist authors emphasized the dialectical relationship between "natural productive forces" and the "metabolism between humanity and nature" in their ecological views, they did not systematically solve the problem of how ecological value is transformed into economic value.
General Secretary Xi Jinping noted in "Establishing a Strong Awareness that 'Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains are Invaluable Assets'": "We must establish a strong awareness that 'lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets' and strive to move toward a new era of socialist ecological civilization." In "Protecting the Ecological Environment is Protecting Productive Forces, and Improving the Ecological Environment is Developing Productive Forces," he pointed out: "Lucid waters and lush mountains are by no means in opposition to invaluable assets; the key lies in people, and the key lies in our way of thinking."
These important discourses innovatively construct a transformation path for realizing the value of ecological products. By incorporating natural capital (such as forest carbon sinks and water source conservation) into the category of productive forces, ecological protection becomes an endogenous driver of economic growth, thereby expanding the connotation of natural productive forces. By introducing the economic category of "products," the realization of ecological product value transforms abstract ecological functions into value carriers with clear property right boundaries and tradable attributes, providing a realistic path for the transformation of "lucid waters and lush mountains" into "invaluable assets."
It promotes the synergistic evolution of economic and ecological systems, vividly demonstrating the concept of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.
The proposal to realize the value of ecological products marks a cognitive leap in ecosystem governance from "resource management" to "value management." It meets the needs of the grand strategic proposition of transforming the ecological environment into exchangeable and consumable ecological products, thereby solving the problem of external diseconomies through economic development.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized "promoting green development and enhancing the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature," pointing the way forward for ecological civilization construction in the New Era. For a long time, economic and ecological systems were viewed as separate, independent systems. This dualistic epistemology led to a dilemma in practice where ecological environmental protection and economic development were pitted against each other. The core of realizing ecological product value is the two-way transformation of "ecosystem economization" and "economic system ecologization." The former transforms the non-market value of ecological products into economic income through pricing, trading, and compensation, while the latter promotes ecological protection through these revenues, forming a positive cycle.
The realization of ecological product value breaks through the limitations of traditional development paradigms. By introducing scarcity pricing, standardized measurement, and life-cycle eco-friendly production, it constructs a theoretical framework for the synergistic evolution of economic and ecological systems.
Scarcity reconstructs the market foundation, achieving a balance between ecological constraints and economic incentives. From the supply side, there is an absolute upper limit to the natural supply of ecological products like clean air and fresh water. The realization of ecological product value transforms this scarcity into market price signals through property rights definition and ecological compensation. Changes on the demand side highlight the dynamic characteristics of scarcity. As living standards improve, social demand for high-quality ecological products grows rapidly, reflecting the people's aspiration for a better life. By using tiered pricing and eco-labeling, the realization of ecological product value satisfies differentiated consumption needs while curbing excessive consumption through price levers, achieving a virtuous cycle of "demand growth—resource protection—value enhancement." This "price-based volume regulation" allows the economic system to spontaneously adapt to ecological constraints, achieving a dynamic balance between the two.
Standardization promotes the scientific transformation of ecological value into market value. Natural laws are the fundamental basis for setting standards; for instance, the calculation of forest carbon sink capacity is based on the photosynthetic efficiency of tree species, and the allocation of water discharge rights considers the self-purification capacity of water bodies. Social consensus is an important guarantee for the implementation of standards; differences in the perception of ecological value among different subjects must be bridged through consultative democracy mechanisms. Modern valuation technologies capture the public's true willingness to pay by simulating market scenarios, providing a foundation of public opinion for value standards. Technological empowerment is the key support for standard enforcement; ecological product trading platforms integrate remote sensing monitoring, blockchain, and other technologies to achieve real-time collection of ecological data and the automatic execution of smart contracts. This "technology + institution" coupling design transforms abstract ecological value into precise market targets, significantly reducing transaction costs.
Full-life-cycle eco-friendly production achieves the deep integration of ecological protection and industrial development, requiring every link—from resource acquisition to final disposal—to follow ecological laws. This concept reshapes traditional production modes through the two-way path of "ecological industrialization" and "industrial ecologization," embodying the unity of economic development and ecological security.
It promotes the modernization of the ecological environmental governance system, contributing Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to global ecological environmental governance.
In his "Speech at the Symposium on Further Promoting the Development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt," General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Explore a sustainable path for realizing the value of ecological products that is government-led, involves enterprises and all sectors of society, and operates through market mechanisms." Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, the realization of ecological product value utilizes the combined power of a "capable government" and an "effective market" to build a modernized governance system featuring multi-party co-governance, providing a new path for global environmental governance through Chinese wisdom.
The essence of realizing the value of ecological products is the innovation of governance structures. On one hand, the government defines property rights, provides ecological compensation, and sets standards, establishing ecological red lines for market operations. This reflects the rule-of-law requirement to "protect the ecological environment with the strictest systems and the most rigorous rule of law" and echoes the ecological view that "mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grass, and sand are a community of life" [2]. On the other hand, market mechanisms guide the effective allocation of resources based on price signals. Through market-based means such as carbon emission trading and water rights trading, the external benefits of ecological protection are internalized. This collaborative model of "government sets the rules, market promotes efficiency" breaks the singular thinking of "government-takes-all" or "market omnipotence," forming a co-governance pattern involving the government, enterprises, communities, and the public.
The realization of the value of ecological products is an important handle for practicing Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization
The realization of ecological product value profoundly reflects the organic unity of implementing the New Development Philosophy, developing new quality productive forces, and achieving the goal of common prosperity for all. It is an important handle for practicing Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization.
The realization of the value of ecological products is an important way to implement the New Development Philosophy in the ecological field.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in "Leading Development with New Development Concepts": "Persisting in innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared development is a profound change affecting the overall development of our country." The realization of ecological product value responds to the theoretical demands of innovative and green development.
Starting from demand theory, the realization of ecological product value breaks through the limitations of traditional public goods theory. It redefines ecosystem services as economic units with clear utility boundaries and market responsiveness. Through property rights definition and standardized measurement, natural welfare—which was previously difficult to partition—is transformed into perceptible and selectable consumption objects, solving the problem of "missing preference revelation" in traditional environmental economics.
Starting from supply theory, the traditional concept of ecosystem services views nature as a passive provider of resources, whereas the concept of ecological products emphasizes ecological agency, focusing on the internal mechanisms of ecosystem self-repair and self-regulation.
From the perspective of production factor inputs, the production of ecological products relies on natural systems; compared to natural resource inputs, the proportion of labor and capital inputs is relatively low, manifesting as a combination of ecological agency factor inputs. From the perspective of output, traditional production processes only produce the product itself, whereas the output of ecological products includes non-market services (such as biodiversity), which possess positive ecological environmental externalities.
The supply theory of ecological products differs from the traditional labor theory of value and transcends simple factor-reward theory; instead, it constructs a composite production function of "human labor—ecological response." This reflects the breakthrough of innovative development over traditional resource pricing mechanisms and confirms the process of internalizing ecological scarcity value under the New Development Philosophy.
The realization of the value of ecological products constructs a new paradigm for regional coordinated development. For example, cross-provincial ecological compensation mechanisms in river basins can innovatively use a combination of fiscal transfer payments and market-based transactions to return economic development dividends from downstream areas to cover the ecological protection costs of upstream areas. This institutional arrangement transcends simple resource exchange; it forms an incentive-compatible mechanism where "protectors are compensated, damagers pay, and users pay." This allows regions at different development stages within the same basin to achieve benefit coordination under ecological protection goals, resolving the development paradox of the "binary opposition between ecological protection and economic growth." It provides an operable institutional tool for implementing the New Development Philosophy of innovation, coordination, greenness, openness, and sharing.
The realization of the value of ecological products is the green engine for cultivating new quality productive forces.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Green development is the defining feature of high-quality development, and new quality productive forces are themselves green productive forces." He emphasized: "Deepen supply-side structural reform; the core is to promote industrial innovation through technological innovation, particularly by using disruptive and cutting-edge technologies to spawn new industries, new models, and new momentum, thereby developing new quality productive forces."
In the era of digital intelligence, the realization of the value of ecological products is a revolution in the paradigm of ecological environmental governance driven by a technological revolution. It explores a shift from the "Coase-Pigou" paradigm [3] to an "algorithm-data" paradigm. By reconstructing the combination of production factors, innovating production function relationships, and reshaping the mechanisms of economic growth, it promotes the transition of economic development toward green, low-carbon, and circular directions.
The digital reconstruction of ecological elements is the starting point for the paradigm shift in digital-intelligent ecological environmental governance. The property rights of ecological resources, which were difficult to define in classical economics, have achieved confirmation through the immutable characteristics of blockchain technology. Static natural capital, under the dynamic monitoring of the Internet of Things (IoT) and remote sensing technology, is transformed into continuously generated, traceable data assets, exhibiting typical network effects and regenerative characteristics, thereby endowing ecological elements with entirely new economic attributes.
Digital-intelligent technology is reshaping the supply curve of ecological products. At the level of factor allocation, by deploying sensor networks and satellite remote sensing systems, the stocks and flows of ecological elements such as forest carbon sinks and water resources can be quantified in real-time, solving the problem of calculating ecological product value.
At the level of the production process, the deep application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) further expands the possibility frontier of ecological product production. Whether it is the dynamic optimization of drone seeding schemes in desert management or the use of neural network algorithms to solve for mangrove restoration, these demonstrate the significant efficiency gains provided by algorithms for ecological supply. This shift allows the ecological production function to evolve toward deep learning architectures.
At the level of value realization, digital-intelligent technology achieves the intelligent matching of supply and demand for ecological products. The problem of demand identification, which has long plagued the development of ecological products, is seeing breakthroughs through the deep mining of social media data using Natural Language Processing (NLP). The network effects created by digital platforms are changing the essential attributes of ecological demand. The demand-side economies of scale formed by massive users on digital platforms, along with the visualization of ecological product experiences achieved through Augmented Reality (AR) technology, all indicate that the demand function for ecological products must incorporate network externalities. Algorithm-driven price discovery mechanisms can effectively solve the problem of market clearing in ecological markets.
These innovations are forming the basic logic of digital-intelligent ecological economics: within a complete ecological data market, algorithms can achieve Pareto optimal allocation; through the digital aggregation of social preferences, any desired ecological distribution can be realized through the initial confirmation of data rights. The scientific guidance for this transformation lies, in the final analysis, in the innovative breakthroughs in the theory of productive forces made by Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and Xi Jinping Economic Thought. These breakthroughs have allowed technology-driven ecological and environmental governance to move from a passive mode of "government correcting market failure" toward an active paradigm of "algorithms empowering market equilibrium," providing a brand-new practical path for global sustainable development.
The realization of the value of ecological products helps to consolidate the ecological foundation of common prosperity. "The way to govern a country begins with enriching the people." [4] General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized: "Chinese-path modernization is the modernization of common prosperity for all people. Common prosperity is an essential requirement of socialism with Chinese characteristics." In the article "Promoting China's Ecological Civilization Construction to a New Level," General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "A good ecological environment is the most universal benefit to people's livelihoods." By activating the economic potential of ecological resources, the realization of the value of ecological products reconstructs the distribution pattern of development rights across the dimensions of time and space. This both reflects the principle of intergenerational equity in sustainable development theory and aligns with the concept of spatial justice in regional economics, forming a new type of distribution mechanism that considers both efficiency and equity.
The core of realizing the value of ecological products lies in transforming the service functions of natural ecosystems into tradable, value-added economic assets. This establishes a more rational wealth distribution mechanism between contemporary and future generations to achieve intergenerational equity and sustainable well-being. Traditional development models often overdraw ecological resources, leading to an intergenerational transfer of "ecological deficits." Conversely, through institutional arrangements—such as the property rights system for natural resource assets—and market-oriented mechanisms—such as cross-period trading of ecological rights—the realization of ecological product value ensures that the long-term benefits of ecological protection are internalized as economic incentives for the current generation, while preserving development capital for future generations.
In the spatial dimension, the realization of the value of ecological products breaks the "ecological paradox" in traditional regional development: ecological functional zones often fall into the predicament of "staying poor while guarding lucid waters and lush mountains" due to protection restrictions, leading to an imbalance between rights and responsibilities in spatial development. Through mechanisms such as horizontal ecological compensation and cross-regional property rights trading, areas with ecological advantages are able to convert ecological capital into economic returns. This "upstream protects, downstream pays" model is, in essence, a spatial redistribution through fiscal transfer payments. It corrects the mismatch of rights and responsibilities between the providers and beneficiaries of ecosystem services, achieving a coupling of ecological justice and distributive justice.
Continuously Broadening Effective Paths for Realizing the Value of Ecological Products Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization requires us to persist in protecting during development and developing during protection. By establishing and improving mechanisms for realizing the value of ecological products, we can clear the institutional channels to transform "lucid waters and lush mountains" into "gold and silver mines." The important expositions on high-quality development within Xi Jinping Economic Thought point toward a market-oriented and sustainable direction for realizing the value of ecological products.
Constructing a scientific and rational value accounting system. This requires us to deeply implement the New Development Philosophy and systematically clarify the internal logic and boundaries of related concepts such as ecological resources, ecological assets, and ecological products. We must optimize and adjust the conceptual system of ecological products to meet the requirements of ecological civilization construction. Based on the goal of building modernization characterized by harmony between humanity and nature, we should further improve the catalog of ecological products and the guidance catalog for ecological industries. We must establish and improve unified and standardized value accounting standards, continuously optimize technical specifications for accounting the Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP), and promote the scientific and rational inclusion of ecological product value into the system of national economic accounting. Furthermore, we must establish dynamic and intelligent evaluation and monitoring mechanisms for ecological product value to achieve real-time monitoring and precise assessment of changes in ecological assets, providing solid data support and institutional guarantees for realizing the value of ecological products.
Innovating market-based pricing mechanisms. In the article "Scientifically and Orderly Promoting the Achievement of Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality Goals," General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed "promoting the better integration of a promising government and an effective market," which points the way for innovating market-based pricing mechanisms for ecological products. The construction of market-based pricing mechanisms must be based on the characteristics of ecological products. Public ecological products possess non-competitive and non-exclusive characteristics, making it difficult for market mechanisms to spontaneously achieve optimal resource allocation. Therefore, we must implement categorized policies and scientifically design pricing mechanisms: for public ecological products, the government can compensate for market failures through ecological compensation and fiscal transfer payments; for commercial ecological products, we should give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, utilizing marginal utility theory, consumer preference analysis, and market competition mechanisms to build a flexible and dynamic pricing system.
Establishing a diversified ecological protection compensation mechanism. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Improve the ecological protection compensation system and the mechanism for realizing the value of ecological products, truly allowing protectors and contributors to receive benefits." This requires improving ecological compensation mechanisms that combine vertical and horizontal elements: the central government's finance should increase the intensity of transfer payments to key ecological functional zones, and horizontal ecological compensation agreements should be established between the upper and lower reaches of river basins. Practice has shown that clarifying compensation standards and establishing consultation mechanisms can effectively mobilize the enthusiasm of all parties to participate in ecological protection. At the same time, we must explore the establishment of a compensation system for ecological product damage, imposing severe punishments on acts that destroy the ecological environment.
Promoting ecological industrialization and industrial ecologization. In the "Instructions Given on the First National Ecology Day," General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Continuously promote the green and low-carbon transformation of production methods and lifestyles, accelerate the promotion of modernization featuring harmony between humanity and nature, and comprehensively promote the construction of a Beautiful China." On one hand, this requires transforming ecological capital into developmental advantages through ecological industrialization—developing green industries such as ecological agriculture, eco-tourism, and health-and-wellness-leisure based on local conditions to build a distinctive ecological economic system. On the other hand, it requires comprehensively promoting the ecologization of industries and the green transformation of traditional industries. Through technological innovation and process upgrades, we should reduce resource and energy consumption, decrease environmental pollution emissions, and achieve the synergistic advancement of industrial development and ecological protection.
Improving the institutional guarantee system for realizing the value of ecological products. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Establish a target system, assessment methods, and reward and punishment mechanisms that reflect the requirements of ecological civilization." This requires us to accelerate the improvement of the institutional system for realizing the value of ecological products: improve laws and regulations; improve the natural resource asset property rights system, demarcate "ecological protection red lines," and implement a system for the paid use of resources; establish an assessment and evaluation mechanism for ecological product value, incorporating it into government performance appraisals; and strengthen technological support by researching key technologies in value accounting and monitoring. At the same time, we must establish risk prevention and control mechanisms for realizing ecological product value to ensure that reforms proceed steadily.
Under the scientific guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, constructing a path for realizing ecological product value—characterized by clear property rights, scientific accounting, active markets, reasonable compensation, industrial integration, and complete institutions—is conducive to achieving the organic unity of economic, social, and ecological benefits. On the journey of the New Era, we must deeply study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and promote the formation of a method for realizing ecological product value with Chinese characteristics, providing strong support for building a Beautiful China and achieving high-quality development.
(Author's affiliation: School of Ecology and Environment, Renmin University of China) Source: People's Daily, August 8, 2025, Page 9 Online Editor: Tongxin