Welcome to Smart Agriculture 中文

Smart Agriculture

   

A Review of The Low-Carbon Transition of Rural Residents' Lifestyle through Digital Empowerment

DING Fanlin1,2()   

  1. 1.Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China
    2.Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
  • Received:2025-12-09 Online:2026-03-09
  • Foundation items:National Natural Science Foundation of China(72404151)
  • corresponding author: DING Fanlin, E-mail: fanlinding@nankai.edu.cn

Abstract:

[Significance] Since the establishment of the "dual carbon" goals, promoting the low-carbon transformation of lifestyles has become a core issue of green and high-quality development. However, most existing studies have selected urban residents as the research subject for investigating low-carbon behaviors, systematic exploration from the perspective of rural residents needs to be supplemented. The implementation of the Digital Rural Development Strategy creates favorable conditions for digital empowerment in the low-carbon transformation of rural residents' lifestyles. Based on the perspective of rural residents' behavior, this paper systematically sorts out relevant domestic and international literature, aiming to explore the core difficulties of rural residents' lifestyle low-carbon transformation and the feasible paths of digital empowerment, so as to provide theoretical reference and practical guidance for the deepening of research in this field and the optimization of relevant policies. [Progress] Firstly, the mainstream theories and research findings is reviewed on resident behavior, concluding that existing studies mostly focus on urban residents, with insufficient relevance analysis and in-depth discussion in rural contexts. Secondly, it deeply analyzes the core dilemmas in the low-carbon lifestyle transformation of rural residents from two dimensions: behavior and cognition. At the behavioral level, rural residents have low acceptance of new low-carbon practices; their behavioral decisions are strongly influenced by social relations such as regional and kinship ties, and external strong stimuli are needed to drive behavioral change. At the cognitive level, rural residents have limited exposure to low-carbon knowledge, which hinders the formation of low-carbon awareness. Meanwhile, there is a significant deviation between low-carbon cognition and actual behavior, and more external incentives are required for rural residents to translate awareness into action. The proposal of the Digital Countryside has provided hardware infrastructure and policy support for digitally driving the low-carbon transformation of rural residents' behavior. Accordingly, the common enabling scenarios of digitalization are further sort out in rural life and explores feasible paths for the low-carbon transformation of rural residents' behavior in the digital era. From one aspect, embedding digital technologies and their derivative products to reshape residents' living habits. Specifically, digital technologies can optimize residents' daily experience and efficiency, while digital financial products and services can reduce the cost of low-carbon behavior for rural residents. Form another, using digital platforms as communication media to gradually foster residents' low-carbon awareness. This is reflected in the efficient dissemination of information that expands rural residents' scope of low-carbon knowledge, and digital social interactions that transform their traditional mindsets. Finally, China's current policy system related to guiding residents' low-carbon behavior is reviewed and evaluated. It is characterized by national macro-plans that set the overall development direction, and local policies that focus on strengthening digital infrastructure construction. [Conclusion and Prospect] Digitalization can accurately address the behavioral and conscious difficulties in the low-carbon transformation of rural residents' lifestyles through four paths: technology embedding, financial empowerment, information dissemination, and social guidance. Future research needs to further expand the applicability of low-carbon behavior theories in rural scenarios, verify the carbon reduction effect and heterogeneous impact of digitalization in rural living scenarios, and construct a two-way interactive digital carbon reduction policy system featuring government guidance and resident participation, so as to provide more targeted theoretical support and policy ideas for the coordinated development of rural residents' lifestyle low-carbon transformation and rural revitalization.

Key words: digitalization, rural residents, low-carbon transition, digital countryside, lifestyle

CLC Number: