Urban Ecological Culture Construction and the Formation of Residents’ Green Living: Evidence from National Forest City Construction in China

Abstract

Based on the data of 282 cities from 2006 to 2019, this paper conducts a quasi-natural experiment with National Forest City as a proxy variable for urban ecological culture construction (Cul), using the difference-in-differences model to verify its impact and mechanisms on residents’ green living. The results are described as follows. (1) Urban ecological culture construction helps form residents’ green living, specifically, reducing carbon emissions from electricity, transportation, and heating, and this conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests. (2) Urban ecological culture construction helps form residents’ green living through two mediating channels: enhancing public environmental protection participation and forming green consumption awareness. (3) Confucianism plays a positive moderating role in the process of urban ecological culture construction promoting residents’ green living, while the moderating role of exotic culture is not significant. It is worth mentioning that the role of Confucianism remains unchanged even when the above two cultures coexist. In view of this, this paper argues that urban ecological culture construction matters in forming residents’ green living. The organic integration of modern urban ecological culture construction with the region’s excellent traditional culture is worth noting.

1. Introduction

The development of modern industrial civilization has led to the alienation of lifestyles while enriching the material life of human society. The prevalence of hedonism and luxury has further deepened the waste of resources and ecological damage [1]. Bin S and Dowlatabadi H have found that more than 80% of the energy used and the CO₂ emitted in the US are a consequence of consumer demands and the economic activities to support these demands [2]. Therefore, it is necessary to change this old way of life, which destroys the ecological environment and relies excessively on natural resources, or else it will hinder the realization of the Dual Carbon Goal. However, a great deal of academic research is currently centered around industrial emissions [3,4,5], industrial structure [6,7,8], and production methods [9,10]. In contrast, research in the areas of green living and green consumption is weak in both depth and breadth [11]. The question of how to guide the population to develop a green living should be given sufficient attention. This is because promoting the formation of a green living is not only an inevitable requirement for realizing the Dual Carbon Goal, but is also the basis for promoting a fundamental change in the ecological environment.

Realizing the green living requires a heightened consciousness of environmental protection in the interaction between human beings and nature, and the ecological culture construction is precisely the source of cultivating this consciousness. In China, the detailed evaluation criteria for urban ecological culture construction began to come into view in 2004, when the first cities were awarded the title of “National Forest City”. The evaluation of “urban ecological culture” is as follows: 1. Perfect facilities for publicizing ecological science, with more than two educational bases or places for popularizing ecological science, such as forests or wetlands. 2. Seriously organize compulsory tree-planting activities for the whole population, establish a registration card system for compulsory tree-planting, and the rate of compulsory tree-planting for the whole population reaches more than 80%. 3. Widely carry out various forms of social participation in greening activities, such as building, adopting, and managing urban green spaces, and establish various memorial forest bases. 4. Organize various kinds of ecological popularization activities more than three times a year. 5. The public awareness rate of the creation of National Forest City reaches more than 90%, and the public support rate for the creation of National Forest City reaches more than 80%. 6. The protection and management of old and valuable trees in the city is strictly standardized and measures are in place. This is the first time that the assessment of urban ecological culture has been emphasized at the governmental level, and it also provides a strong support for the article to set proxy variable for urban ecological culture construction.

It is worth mentioning that ecological ethic of moderate solicitation and rational utilization is one of the components of traditional culture in China, which is reflected in the Confucianism that has lasted for more than 2000 years. For example, Confucian thinkers advocated the concepts of “heaven-and-human oneness”, “taking in moderation, using in moderation”, etc. All these concepts show the attitude of ancient Chinese people to respect and honor nature. However, traditional thinking has its limitations in modern society. Ellen and Fukui have pointed out that humankind has evolved over several million years by living in and utilizing ‘nature’ and by assimilating it into ‘culture’ [12]. Thus, culture is constantly changing, and the specific role of traditional culture in the modern eco-culture construction cannot be fully ascertained. Therefore, this paper attempts to empirically test the role of Confucianism in promoting the modern ecological culture construction in cities so as to provide advice and suggestions for further strengthening the modern ecological culture construction in cities.

In summary, this paper takes China’s “National Forest City” program as a quasi-natural experiment, takes it as a proxy variable for urban ecological culture construction, and utilizes a standardized causal identification strategy to examine the impact of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green living and its mechanism. We intend to make a breakthrough in the following aspects: (1) Unlike a large number of existing studies that analyze the importance of ecological culture construction in a theoretical discursive way, this paper empirically verifies the impact of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green living by using the difference-in-differences model; (2) The article tries to open the “black box” of the impact of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green behaviors, from both theory and empirical evidence; (3) The article actively explores the integration effect of urban modern ecological culture construction and regional traditional ecological culture thought. It incorporates Chinese Confucianism and foreign culture into the theoretical framework and examines their moderating effects on the relationship between urban ecological culture construction and residents’ green living.

2. Literature Review

Green lifestyle is a behavior that protects the natural environment as much as possible while satisfying the needs of humans [13]. Promoting green consumption [14,15] and saving resources [16,17] are the basic features of green lifestyle. For example, choosing to use renewable energy in daily life, purchasing eco-products, and commuting by public transportation. In short, green lifestyle is a positive behavior to improve environmental quality. Research on the influencing factors of residents’ green lifestyles involves both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Intrinsic factors mainly include consumers’ ecological cognition [18], psychological motivation [19], etc., while extrinsic factors mainly include the social environment [20], social reference norms [21], and cultural factors [16], etc. In addition, some scholars have paid attention to the impact of government intervention policies on green lifestyles. For example, Ren S. et al. found that government intervention policies affect green living through regulations that adjust individual behavior [22]. Whitmarsh found that the spillover effects of policies were related to environmental behavior in carbon offsets in the UK [23]. Eliasson et al. found that people are more likely to use public transportation if they receive responsive subsidies from the government [24].

Further, regarding the influence of culture on green behaviors, international scholars have identified indigenous and local knowledge as an important element in building an environmentally friendly society, but this has not been thoroughly studied in a Chinese context. For example, Sutton and Anderson put forward the view that various cultural practices can mitigate the effects of environmental change, thus leveling out environmental differences [25]. Genoveva and Syahrivar investigated the factors affecting the green lifestyles of Indonesian millennials residing in Asia and Europe, and it was found that culture and religious passions have a positive impact on green lifestyles [26]. Halder et al. found that cultural collectivism has a significant positive impact on green consumption [27]. Hosen et al. found through interviews and fieldwork observations that indigenous peoples’ traditional ecological knowledge can help indigenous communities adapt to climate risks and promote socio-ecological resilience [28].

The research above clarifies that there are many factors affecting residents’ lifestyles, and culture is one of the important aspects. It provides the theoretical basis for this paper. However, there are some shortcomings: first, international scholars have identified indigenous and local knowledge as an important element in building an environmentally friendly society, but this has not been thoroughly studied in a Chinese context; second, the empirical study is inadequate, meaning there is no direct evidence of how ecological culture and green living are established. National Forest City in China is exactly the research opportunity because it has specific construction contents and standards for ecological culture; third, the research on the influence of culture on residents’ behavior is mostly focused on a single aspect, and there is no empirical test on the integration effect of modern ecological culture construction and regional traditional culture. This paper attempts to explore this aspect and further enrich this research field.

3. Theoretical Analysis and Hypotheses

3.1. Influence of Urban Ecological Culture Construction on Residents’ Green Living

According to the theory of Institutional Economics, on the one hand, individual behavior is constrained and limited by formal institutions; on the other hand, it is also influenced by the subtle influence of informal institutions such as culture and religion [29], and the influence of culture is more far-reaching than that of institutions. When it comes to the content of ecological culture construction in National Forest City, firstly, it highlights the concept of harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature, and advocates green civilization in cities; secondly, it clarifies the measures for carrying out the ecological culture construction and takes it as an aspect of the evaluation criteria. It can be seen that it takes green values as the intangible kernel, and green institutional norms and green behavioral practices as the tangible manifestation. With the gradual deepening of ecological culture construction, it internally enhances people’s ecological cognition and cultivates psychological motivation to protect the environment; externally, it creates a pro-environmental atmosphere and provides a green platform for urban residents. Ultimately, it promotes urban residents to adopt a green lifestyle that saves energy, reduces consumption, and cuts emissions.

Firstly, the ecological culture construction emphasizes the participation of residents. Construction standards include the organization of compulsory tree-planting for the entire population, with the rate of compulsory tree-planting for the entire population reaching more than 80 percent, and the extensive development of social participation in greening activities, such as the adoption of green spaces. In the beginning, the government is the organizer of environmental protection behaviors. The government ensures the orderly participation of urban residents through a relatively rigid institutional system, which strengthens the residents’ sense of responsibility and participation. Further, residents gradually develop environmental consciousness and complete the conversion from “passive participation” to “active participation” [30]. Public participation in environmental protection can play a useful role in the realization of emission reduction goals [31,32].

Secondly, publicizing ecological knowledge and conducting ecological popular science education is another important element of ecological culture construction. Specifically, this includes perfect facilities for publicizing ecological science, the construction of more than two educational bases or places for ecological science knowledge, such as forests or wetlands. More rigorously, there is the organization of more than three ecological science activities of various kinds each year. Science popularization places are precisely the publicity and education bases of urban ecological culture, which is conducive to the dissemination and promotion of ecological knowledge to urban residents. Environmental knowledge is conducive to changes in environmental behavior [33]. Popularize the laws and regulations related to the protection of natural resources in China so that they fully understand the importance of cherishing natural resources and protecting the ecological environment, thus enhancing their ecological awareness and changing the concept of consumption, such as “consumerism” and “science and technology first”. Based on Behavioral Motivation Theory (BMT), residents’ awareness of green consumption will lead them to form a green lifestyle. For example, Golob et al. found that environmentally conscious consumers would be highly involved in various green behaviors, such as green transportation, garbage classification, and the reduction of energy consumption [34].

In addition, the beneficiaries of the National Forest City are all urban residents, in order to improve the urban living environment and further enhance the residents’ sense of well-being. For example, there are a number of recreational areas in the built-up area, mainly various types of parks and public green spaces, so that urban residents can experience the fruitful results of environmental improvement, which is conducive to stimulating the residents’ inner sense of responsibility and mastery of the role of the posture [35] so as to physically practice a green way of life.

In summary, this paper argues that urban ecological culture construction will promote the residents’ green living and that urban ecological culture construction promotes public environmental protection participation and green consumption awareness are the mediating channels that this paper wants to verify. The following hypotheses are proposed:

H1. 

Urban ecological culture construction can promote the formation of residents’ green living.

H2. 

Urban ecological culture construction helps to promote public environmental protection participation to promote the formation of urban residents’ green living.

H3. 

Urban ecological culture construction helps to enhance residents’ green consumption awareness to promote the formation of urban residents’ green living.

3.2. The Moderating Role of Confucianism

Confucianism is an important part of traditional Chinese culture that has been influencing people’s behavior for thousands of years. Research on this topic has focused on how Confucianism influences the decision-making behavior of executives [36,37], as well as cultural identity [38,39], and minimal literature has focused on the ecological thinking aspect of Confucianism.

Confucianism considers “frugality” to be a fundamental virtue of being a human being, making it a norm of daily human behavior along with “warmth, goodness, and respect”. These are reflected in many famous quotes. In dealing with the relationship between man and nature, Confucianism advocates cherishing natural resources and protecting the environment. For example, people will consider the reproduction of animals when fishing and hunting, so they will advocate for the release of underage prey. Therefore, the modern concept of ecological civilization is in the same vein as Confucianism. It can even be said that Confucianism provides traditional cultural support for the construction of ecological civilization in the new era.

However, traditional Confucianism may have limitations because of the rapid changes in today’s world, so the integration of modern society with ancient thought faces many challenges. Therefore, this paper incorporates Confucianism into the research framework to explore its moderating role in the relationship between urban ecological culture and residents’ green living. Further, cultural development is spatial and collision. When a foreign culture enters, it often produces cultural conflict or cultural integration, as Deng Guoying illustrated [40] when they introduced the impact of foreign culture as a factor in the study of the relationship between Confucian tradition and income gap. Inspired by this, this paper takes the impact of foreign culture into account. It explores the moderating effect of Confucianism and foreign culture in the relationship between urban ecological culture construction and residents’ green living. The following hypotheses are made:

H4. 

Confucianism plays a positive moderating effect in the influence of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green living.

H5. 

Foreign culture plays a negative moderating effect in the influence of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green living.

4. Methods and Data Description

4.1. Methods

In order to effectively mitigate endogeneity, this paper constructs the asymptotic difference-in-differences (DID) to identify the impact of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green living. The model is depicted as follows.

$$Carbo{n}_{\mathit{it}}={\beta }_0+{\beta }_{1}Cu{l}_{\mathit{it}}+\varphi X_{\mathit{it}}+{\mu }_i+{\gamma }_t+{\epsilon }_{\mathit{it}}$$

(1)

where Carbon_it is the explained variable, denoting the intensity of residents’ carbon emission of city i in year t. Cul_it is the core explanatory variable, and it equals to 1 if i city has been entitled as National Forest City since year t, and 0 otherwise. Vector X_it denotes the set of control variables; μ_i denotes the individual fixed effects of the city i that do not vary over time, while γ_t controls for time fixed effects; and ε_it denotes the random disturbance term. β₁ represents the coefficient of the difference of our great interest. If it is less than 0 significantly, the hypothesis 1 that ecological culture construction can lower the intensity of residents’ living carbon emission and boost their green living will be verified.

Further, according to the previous theoretical analysis, public environmental protection participation and green consumption awareness play a mediating role in the impact of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green living. In order to verify hypotheses 2 and 3, on the basis of the baseline model, this paper draws on the method of Wen Z et al. [41] to test the mediating effect to construct the mediation model.

$$W_{\mathit{it}}={\beta }_0^{\prime }+{\beta }_1^{\prime }Cu{l}_{\mathit{it}}+{\varphi }^{\prime }{X}_{\mathit{it}}+{\mu }_i+{\gamma }_t+{\epsilon }_{it}^{\prime }$$

(2)

W_it denotes the mediating variable: public environmental protection participation or green consumption awareness. Other variables are consistent with the meaning of the baseline model. Referring to the method of Zeng [42], the number of environmental letters (Let) is used to characterize the public environmental protection participation, and the larger the number of letters indicates the higher the degree of public environmental protection participation in the local area. From the point of view of life, the behavior of saving is a direct embodiment of the green consumption awareness and is manifested by the fact that people advocate thrift in their life and oppose extravagance. Drawing on the practice of Yu [43], the article adopts the logarithmic value of per capita living electricity consumption in the city (Ele) and the ratio of buses to cabs and private cars (Bus) to measure residents’ green consumption awareness.

Finally, in order to test Hypotheses 4 and 5 proposed in this paper, and to examine whether there is a moderating role of Confucianism and foreign culture in the effect of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green living, models (3) and (4) were built by adding the Confucianism and foreign culture and their interaction terms with Cul, respectively, to the baseline model. Furthermore, in order to examine the moderating role of the main effect of Confucianism and foreign culture together, the triple interaction term was added to build the model (5). It should be noted in particular that in order to make the coefficients of the independent variables after adding the interaction terms comparable, this paper refers to the practice of existing research [44] and regresses the variables after centering.

$$Carbo{n}_{\mathit{it}}={\alpha }_0+{\alpha }_{1}Cu{l}_{\mathit{it}}+{\alpha }_{2}c.conf+{\alpha }_{3}Cu{l}_{it}\times c.conf+\delta X_{\mathit{it}}+{\mu }_i+{\gamma }_t+{\epsilon }_{it}$$

(3)

$$Carbo{n}_{it}={\alpha }_0^{\prime }+{\alpha }_1^{\prime }Cu{l}_{\mathit{it}}+{\alpha }_2^{\prime }c.chr+{\alpha }_3^{\prime }Cu{l}_{it}\times c.chr+{\delta }^{\prime }{X}_{\mathit{it}}+{\mu }_i+{\gamma }_t+{\epsilon }_{it}$$

(4)

$$\begin{array}{l}Carbo{n}_{it}={\alpha }_0^{″}+{\alpha }_1^{″}Cu{l}_{\mathit{it}}+{\alpha }_2^{″}c.conf+{\alpha }_3^{″}c.chr+{\alpha }_4^{″}Cu{l}_{it}\times c.conf+{\alpha }_5^{″}Cu{l}_{it}\times c.chr\\ +{\alpha }_6^{″}c.conf\times c.chr+{\alpha }_7^{″}Cu{l}_{it}\times c.conf\times c.chr+{\delta }^{″}{X}_{\mathit{it}}+{\mu }_i+{\gamma }_t+{\epsilon }_{it}\end{array}$$

(5)

where c.conf denotes Confucianism, characterized by the number of Confucian temples after centering, computed as the number of Confucian temples minus its sample mean; c.chr is foreign culture, characterized by the number of Christian churches after centering, computed in the same way as before. Cul × c.conf is the interaction term between Cul and Confucianism, Cul × c.chr is the interaction term between Cul and foreign culture, Cul × c.conf × c.chr is the interaction term between Cul and Confucianism and foreign culture, and the rest of the interaction terms have similar meanings. The other variables have the same meaning as in the baseline model.

4.2. Data Description

4.2.1. Core Explanatory Variable

The core explanatory variable is urban ecological culture construction (Cul), which has not yet been measured accurately, and this paper innovatively uses the title of “National Forest City” as a proxy variable for it. It should be noted that, because the title of “National Forest City” also includes the criteria of vegetation greening, such as forest coverage and green space rate, in this paper, in order to exclude the influence of forest and green space on the intensity of carbon emissions of residents’ life, the forest coverage (For) and green space per capita (Gre) are added into the main regression equation as control variables. In addition, considering that the influence of forest green space on the explained variable of this paper may have a lagged effect, the For and Gre were also lagged in the subsequent robustness test.

This paper collects the list and the construction schedule of National Forest City, after removing some county-level cities and cities with serious data missing, the actual number of treatment groups used in the paper is 163, and the control group is 119. The Cul value rule is set as follows: for a National Forest City, i.e., a city that carries out urban ecological culture construction, Cul takes the value of 1 in the year of granting the title of “National Forest City” and the years after that, otherwise it is 0; for non-pilot city, Cul always takes the value of 0. This is because: ① The impact of urban ecological culture construction is gradual and continuous, and reaches its peak when it is awarded the title, and continues to have an impact after it is awarded the title. ② Theoretically, assuming that the initial ecological and cultural construction will reduce carbon emissions, and taking the city that has not yet been built as a control group will cause the regression coefficient to be close to zero, even so, if it can still be negatively significant, it can show the reliability of this paper. ③ After obtaining the title of “National Forest City”, a review will be carried out every three years, and during this period, the forest cover has reached the standard and will not be easily destroyed, and the focus of the construction will be on the urban ecological culture construction, further reflecting the theme of this paper.

4.2.2. Explained Variable

The explained variable is the intensity of residents’ carbon emission (Carbon), the article on the basis of data availability, reference to the practice of Ding et al. [45]. Firstly, from the four aspects of electricity, gas, transportation, and heating to measure the urban residents living carbon emissions, the method of measurement is shown in

Table 1. Measuring the carbon intensity of residential living.

Emission Category	Calculation Formula	Notes
Electricity	CEi = AC1i × EF1α	AC1i is the domestic electricity consumption of city i residents and EF1α is the carbon emission factor of the power grid where the city is located. Where α takes the value range of [1,6] to indicate the six regional power grids in China
Gas	CGi = AC2i × NVI2 × EF2 + AC3i × NVI3 × EF3 × M3	AC2i and AC3i are the household LPG and gas consumption in city i, respectively, NVI2 and NVI3 correspond to their heating values, EF2 and EF3 correspond to their carbon emission factors (0.06307 kg/MJ and 0.0561 kg/MJ), respectively, and M3 is the density of gas (0.45 kg/m3)
Transportation	CTi = ∑Bnni × Ln × λn × ρn	Bni is the number of cars in the city i buses (n = 1), taxis (n = 2) and private cars (n = 3), Ln, λn and ρn correspond to their annual mileage travelled, fuel (gas) consumption factor per 100 km and CO2 emission factor (2.314 kg/L), respectively.
Heating	CHi = Si × Ni × EF4	Si is the home heating area of city i (m2), Ni is the coal consumption per unit area heated in city i (kg/m2) and EF4 is the carbon emission factor for standard coal (2.46 kgCO2/kg)
Total	Ci = CEi + CGi + CTi + CHi	Ci is a measured estimate of carbon emissions from residential energy consumption in city i.

, and through the above four types of carbon emissions to sum up to obtain the total carbon emissions of the urban residents’ living energy consumption. It was then divided by the city’s gross domestic product (GDP) to obtain the carbon emission intensity of urban residents’ living (Carbon). The carbon intensity of urban residents’ living is chosen to measure the green living level of urban residents because urban residents’ living carbon emissions mainly come from their consumption of various types of energy, and less energy consumption means a high level of green living.

4.2.3. Control Variables

In addition to the two control variables of forest coverage (For) and green space per capita (Gre) mentioned above, with reference to the existing research, this paper selects the following six factors affecting the carbon emissions of urban residents. ① Economic development (pdgp) is measured by logarithm of per capita gross regional product. ② Population size (pop) is taken the logarithm of urban registered population. ③ Technology innovation (tec) is also adopted as the logarithm of fiscal expenditure on science and technology. ④ Financial development (fin), the number of finance workers, is taken logarithmically. ⑤ Industrial structure (ind), the ratio of employees in the secondary and tertiary sectors to the whole, is logarithmically processed. ⑥ Energy consumption structure (es), the ratio of coal consumption to the total energy consumption is measured.

The study sample consists of the panel data of 282 cities from 2006–2019. The list of National Forest City comes from the State Forestry and Grassland Administration of China. Control variables are from China City Statistical Yearbook and China Regional Economic Statistical Yearbook. The emission factors for each regional power grid were obtained from China Regional Power Grid Carbon Dioxide Baseline Emission Factors; the coal consumption per unit of heating area was obtained from Energy Conservation Design Standards for Civil Construction. Descriptive statistics of the above variables are shown in

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for key variables.

Variable	Obs	Mean	Sd	Min	Max
Explained variables
Carbon	3948	0.246	0.237	0.056	4.993
Electricity	3948	0.080	0.102	0.000	2.439
Gas	3948	0.011	0.027	0.000	1.450
Traffic	3948	0.129	0.166	0.003	4.747
Heating	3948	0.026	0.051	0.000	0.488
Explanatory variables
Cul	3948	0.215	0.411	0	1
Control variables
For	3948	36.007	16.379	4.000	66.800
Gre	3941	14.372	19.316	0.081	309.376
pgdp	3946	10.313	0.757	4.595	13.056
pop	3948	5.875	0.694	2.868	8.134
tec	3939	9.162	1.960	0.693	15.529
fin	3945	0.141	0.880	−2.813	4.166
ind	3945	0.211	0.603	−1.702	3.058
es	3948	0.451	0.134	0.012	0.748

.

5. Results

5.1. Baseline Regression

This part empirically analyzes the impact of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green living. Equation (1) is estimated to test Hypothesis 1. The regression results are shown in

Table 3. Baseline regression results.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Variable	Carbon	Carbon	Carbon	Carbon
Cul	−0.037 *** (0.010)	−0.029 *** (0.010)	−0.028 *** (0.010)	−0.021 ** (0.010)
For			−0.006 ** (0.003)	−0.004 (0.003)
Gre			−0.001 ** (0.000)	−0.001 ** (0.000)
pgdp				−0.057 *** (0.018)
pop				−0.111 ** (0.053)
tec				−0.028 *** (0.004)
fin				−0.033 ** (0.014)
ind				−0.024 ** (0.012)
es				−0.137 ** (0.067)
_cons	0.229 *** (0.012)	0.229 *** (0.010)	0.422 *** (0.088)	1.808 *** (0.371)
City fixed effects	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
N	3946	3946	3939	3939
R2	0.321	0.326	0.326	0.345

Standard errors in parentheses; * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

. The column (1) of Table 3 does not add control variables and controls only for year-fixed effects. The column (2) controls for city-fixed effects on the basis of the column (1). Further, the control variables (For and Gre) are added in column (3), and the rest of the control variables are added in columns (4). The results show that the absolute value of the coefficient is slightly reduced after adding For and Gre, and it is still negatively significant, indicating that Cul still has a significant effect on the explanatory variables after excluding the effect of forest vegetation on the intensity of residents’ living carbon emissions. The estimated coefficients of Cul are all significantly negative in the process of adding the control variables sequentially, with the absolute magnitude of the coefficients concentrated in the range of 2–3%. Focusing on the regression results in the column (4), after adding all control variables and controlling for city fixed effects and year fixed effects, the estimated coefficient of Cul is −0.021, significant at the 5% level, indicating that urban ecological culture significantly reduces the intensity of residents’ living carbon emissions, that is to say, promotes the formation of a green living for urban residents. Hypothesis 1 is verified.

5.2. Robustness Tests

5.2.1. Parallel Trend Test

The identification strategy of the difference-in-differences model needs to satisfy the parallel trend assumption. For the research setting of this paper, the parallel trend assumption implies that the changing trends in the intensity of residents’ carbon emission in the treatment and control groups should be parallel prior to ecological culture construction. To test this, we used an Event Study referring to Alder [46]. The specific steps are depicted as follows.

$$Carbo{n}_{\mathit{it}}=\alpha +{\displaystyle \sum _{t=-10}^{15}{\beta }_t\times D_{\mathit{it}}}+\varphi X_{it}+{\mu }_i+{\gamma }_t+{\epsilon }_{it}$$

(6)

where D_it is a set of dummy variables, which equals to 1 if the city i was entitled “National Forest City” since year t, and 0 otherwise. Other variables remain unchanged as in Equation (1). t, a coefficient of our great interest, implies the net gap between the pilot and non-pilot cities in year t. Considering that the data for the first 10 years and the last 14 years of the policy implementation are less available, this paper summarizes the data for the first 10 years of obtaining the designation into period −10 and the data for the last 14 years of obtaining the designation into period 14. In addition, this paper uses the first 1 period of the ecological culture construction as the base period.

The results of the parallel trend test shown in Figure 1 indicate that none of the t is significantly different from 0 at t < 0, and the parallel trend hypothesis is satisfied. After obtaining the title, the coefficients are not significant in the first period, and then become gradually significant, and the absolute value of the coefficients tends to increase, which indicates that the influence effect of urban ecological and cultural construction on the intensity of carbon emissions of urban residents’ life is a gradual, long-term process.

5.2.2. Placebo Test

To conduct the placebo test of the multi-stage difference-differences model, we combined virtual groups of individuals with virtual policy implementing time. Then we conducted random sampling in city and year alternatively, ensuring higher possibility in imitation. The specific steps are described as follows. Firstly, 163 cities were randomly selected as the virtual treatment group and others were selected as the virtual control group in city samples. Secondly, the policy launching year was randomly selected within from 2006 to 2019 for each city. Finally, we ran a regression following Equation (1) again and obtained the estimated coefficients. After repeating the process 500 times, we obtained a coefficient matrix consists of 500 regression coefficients and its p-value matrix. Kernel density distribution and p-value scatter of the two matrices show that the regression coefficients are around 0 and follow a normal distribution. In the baseline regression, the estimated coefficients locate in the hightails of the virtuous regression coefficient distribution, which is a small probability event in the placebo test; most p-value scatters lie above the reference axis y = 0.1, meaning that most results are not significant. These evidence prove the placebo test as expected and no unobservable factors were at play in regression (see Figure 2).

5.2.3. Bacon Test

Because this paper uses a multi-temporal DID model, the estimated impact of the baseline regression is a weighted average of the results of multiple 2 × 2 DIDs [47]. Some of the 2 × 2 DIDs may have positive coefficients or negative weights due to the use of cities that have been awarded the title of “National Forest City” as a control group, which affects the accuracy of the baseline regression estimates, and this needs to be taken into account.

In this paper, the control groups are divided into four categories. In

Table 4. Bacon decomposition.

Category	DD Comparison	Weight	Avg DD Est
A	Earlier T vs. Later C	0.226	−0.004
B	Later T vs. Earlier C	0.114	0.017
C	T vs. Never treated	0.644	−0.050
D	T vs. Already treated	0.016	0.131

, the control groups in categories B and D are cities that have been awarded the title of “National Forest City”, which are “bad” control groups, and if the weight of these combinations is too high, it will lead to too much bias in the baseline regression results. In contrast, categories A and C are the good control groups used. In this paper, the Bacon decomposition method [47] was used to estimate the coefficients of 2 × 2 DID for the four categories and to decompose the weights, and the results are shown in Table 4. It can be found that in this paper, the weight of 2 × 2 DID for category C is 64.4% and that of category A is 22.6%, and the sign of the coefficients are negative; category B and D take up smaller weights, 11.4% and 1.6%, respectively, and the results are more satisfactory.

Figure 3 clearly shows the estimated coefficients and weights for all 2×2 DIDs, and it is clear that the conclusions drawn from the baseline regression in this paper are less affected by the estimation bias caused by the inconsistent timing of ecological and cultural construction in the city.

5.2.4. Other Robustness Tests

In order to further exclude the interference of other factors, this paper tests the estimation results from four dimensions, namely, excluding the lagged impact of forest green space, excluding the interference of low-carbon city pilot policy, excluding the impact of the city’s own characteristics, and sample data screening, to ensure the robustness of the estimation results.

(1)

Excluding the lagged impact of forest green space. The influence of forest green space on the carbon emission intensity of residential life may have a lag. In this paper, the forest cover and green space per capita are treated with a lag of 1, 2, and 3 periods, respectively, and then regressed according to the model 1, obtaining the estimation results shown in columns (1) (2) (3) of

Table 5. Regression results after lags.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Variable	Carbon	Carbon	Carbon	Carbon
Cul	−0.028 *** (0.011)	−0.027 ** (0.011)	−0.026 ** (0.012)	−0.019 * (0.011)
L1.For	−0.006 ** (0.003)			−0.003 (0.003)
L1.Gre	−0.001 ** (0.000)			−0.001 ** (0.000)
L2.For		−0.005 (0.003)
L2.Gre		−0.001 ** (0.000)
L3.For			−0.002 (0.003)
L3.Gre			−0.001 * (0.000)
Control variables	No	No	No	Yes
City fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
N	3662	3384	3102	3652
R2	0.327	0.331	0.333	0.348

Standard errors in parentheses; * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

; all control variables are treated with a one-period lag, obtaining the estimation results shown in column (4) of Table 5. The results show that the estimated coefficients of Cul are all significantly negative, i.e., the baseline regression conclusion remains robust.

(2)

Excluding the interference of low-carbon city pilot policy. Yu et al. [43] found that the low-carbon city pilot policy promotes carbon emission reduction, which can cause bias in the baseline estimation results. In addition, the low-carbon city pilot policy is the same policy to carry out urban construction, but unlike the National Forest City, this policy does not provide planning and requirements for ecological culture construction, so taking the low-carbon city pilot policy into account can further strengthen the viewpoints of this paper. In the sample interval, the low-carbon city pilot policy was launched three times, and the policy variable was constructed with the value of 1 in the pilot year and the following years, and the value of 0 in the other cases. This policy variable was added into model 1, and the regression results are shown in column (1) of

Table 6. Other robustness tests.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
Variable	Carbon	Carbon	Carbon	Carbon	Carbon	Carbon Truncated 1%	Carbon Truncated 5%
Cul	−0.021 ** (0.010)	−0.022 ** (0.010)	−0.020 ** (0.010)	−0.017 * (0.010)	−0.019 * (0.010)	−0.018 *** (0.007)	−0.010 ** (0.004)
Municipalities × T		−0.023 *** (0.005)
Special Economic Zones × T			−0.010 *** (0.003)
Provincial capitals × T				−0.016 *** (0.002)
North × T					0.003 ** (0.001)
Low Carbon City Pilot Policy	Yes
Control variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
City fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
N	3932	3932	3932	3932	3932	3932	3932
R2	0.344	0.347	0.347	0.354	0.345	0.451	0.484

Standard errors in parentheses; * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

, and the coefficient of core explanatory variable was still significantly negative.

(3)

Excluding the influence of the city’s own characteristics. Generally speaking, the choice of National Forest City may be related to the city’s own location characteristics, geographic location and other factors. Moreover, these factors may have different impacts on the carbon emissions of urban residents’ life in the long run, which may cause estimation bias. Therefore, in this paper, referring to the method of Song [48], we add the interaction term between the city’s own characteristics and the linear trend in time in Equation (1) to obtain Equation (7).

$$Carbo{n}_{\mathit{it}}=\alpha +\beta Cu{l}_{\mathit{it}}+\varphi X_{\mathit{it}}+\xi Q_c\times T_t+{\mu }_i+{\gamma }_t+{\epsilon }_{\mathit{it}}$$

(7)

where Q_c denotes a set of dummy variables for city benchmark factors, including whether the city belongs to a municipality directly under the central government, belongs to a special economic zone, is the capital of a province, and is located north of the Qinling-Huaihe River demarcation line. t is a time trend term. After adding the interaction term between the city’s own characteristics and the time linear trend, the estimation results are shown in columns (2) (3) (4) (5) in Table 6, and the coefficient estimates of the difference terms pass the significance test and are similar to those of the benchmark regression.

(4)

Sample data screening. In order to avoid the influence of extreme values on the baseline regression results, Equation (1) is regressed on the sample after the two-sided truncation of 1% and 5% according to the explained variable of the intensity of residential carbon emissions, respectively. The estimation results are shown in columns (6) and (7) of Table 6. After excluding the extreme values, the absolute values of the coefficients of the difference terms decrease slightly, but the signs remain unchanged and pass the significance test, which is similar to the baseline estimation results.

5.3. Direct Affecting Channels

Since the carbon emission intensity of urban residents’ life used in this paper is measured from four aspects of residents’ electricity, gas, transportation, and heating, the calculation method is the ratio of total carbon emission of residents’ life to GDP, which takes into account the economic factors of the city. In order to avoid the bias of the results caused by the growth of GDP, that is to say, when the growth rate of GDP is relatively fast, it may cause the false impression that the urban ecological culture construction reduces the intensity of residents’ living carbon emissions. Therefore, in this part, in order to further verify the reliability of the results of this paper and clarify the direct impact of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ living carbon emissions, the variables in the table were analyzed in terms of per capita carbon emissions from electricity (Electricity), per capita carbon emissions from gas (Gas), per capita carbon emissions from traffic (Traffic), and per capita carbon emissions from heating (Heating), all of which are specifically analyzed. The variables in the table are logarithmic treatment, the regression results are shown in

Table 7. Impact of ecological culture construction on carbon emissions in four categories.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Variable	Electricity	Gas	Traffic	Heating
Cul	−0.062 ** (0.030)	−0.010 (0.028)	−0.041 *** (0.015)	−0.087 ** (0.034)
Control variables	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
City fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
N	3932	3932	3932	3932
R2	0.358	0.199	0.885	0.100

Standard errors in parentheses; * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

. According to the results in Table 7, the coefficient of Cul has a significant impact on the carbon emissions of urban residents in electricity, transportation, and heating, and has no significant impact on the carbon emissions of living gas.

5.4. Indirect Affecting Channels

The estimation results in column (1) of

Table 8. Indirect channel analysis.

	(1)	(2)
Variable	Let	Ele	Bus
Cul	0.448 ** (0.218)	−0.054 * (0.030)	0.002 ** (0.001)
Control variables	Yes	Yes	Yes
City fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes
N	3776	3934	3932
R2	0.452	0.452	0.058

Standard errors in parentheses; * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05,*** p < 0.01.

show that the coefficient of the difference term is significantly positive for Let, which indicates that the urban ecological culture construction enhances the public environmental protection participation, and then promotes the residents’ green living, which verifies Hypothesis 2. The estimation results in column (2) of Table 8 show that the coefficients of the difference terms are negative for Ele and positive for Bus, and pass the significance test, indicating that urban ecological culture construction reduces the residents’ electricity consumption, promotes the ratio of buses, and improves the residents’ green consumption awareness to a certain extent, and this result verifies Hypothesis 3.

5.5. The Moderating Effect of Confucianism

The regression results are shown in

Table 9. Regression results of the reconciliation model.

	(1)	(2)	(3)
Variable	Carbon	Carbon	Carbon
Cul	−0.018 * (0.010)	−0.017 (0.012)	−0.006 (0.012)
c.conf	0.000 (.)		0.000 (.)
c.chr		−0.048 (0.119)	−0.074 (0.179)
Cul × c.conf	−0.019 *** (0.006)		−0.023 *** (0.007)
Cul × c.chr		−0.002 (0.005)	0.012 * (0.007)
c.conf × c.chr			−0.034 (0.238)
Cul × c.conf × c.chr			−0.011 *** (0.004)
Control variables	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes
City fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes
_cons	1.688 *** (0.367)	1.381 *** (0.482)	1.356 *** (0.486)
N	3932	2652	2652
R2	0.347	0.339	0.343

Standard errors in parentheses; * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

. In column (1), the main effect is negative, and the coefficient of the interaction term Cul × c.conf is negative and passes the significance test at the 1% level, which indicates that Confucianism will have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between urban ecological culture construction and the residents’ green living, i.e., in the cities that are greatly influenced by Confucianism, the urban ecological culture construction promoting the residents’ green living is more obvious; in column (2), the interaction term Cul × c.chr does not pass the significance test, indicating that the moderating effect of foreign culture on the main effect is not significant when foreign culture exists alone; furthermore, in column (3), the coefficient of the triple interaction term Cul × c.conf × c.chr is significantly negative, i.e., Confucianism and foreign culture in general have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the ecological culture construction and the residents’ green living, but the absolute value of the coefficient is smaller than the absolute value of the coefficient of Cul × c.conf in column (1), which indicates that the foreign culture impacts the moderating effect of Confucianism on the residents’ green living to a certain extent. Hypotheses 4 and 5 are resolved.

6. Discussion

Planting ecological civilization conception—cultivating ecological culture awareness—and practicing a green lifestyle is an important measure to achieve the Dual Carbon Goal, and is a necessary way to promote the harmonious development of the human beings–nature relationship. The findings of this paper illustrate that, in the context of traditional Chinese culture, the National Forest City in China is a practical activity that effectively proclaims the urban ecological culture, which is a unique Chinese experience and highlight. However, this is only a stage victory, and future efforts should be made on ecological culture construction.

6.1. Influence of Urban Ecological Culture Construction on Residents’ Green Living

The study found that urban ecological culture construction (Cul) promotes the formation of residents’ green living, indicating that urban ecological culture construction has achieved initial results in China. In this ecological culture construction, it not only highlights the concept of harmonious coexistence between man and nature and advocates urban green civilization; it also has specific construction measures and standards. Correspondingly, it has internally enhanced people’s ecological cognition and cultivated psychological motivation to protect the environment; externally, it has created a pro-environmental atmosphere and has provided a green platform for urban residents. Residents’ ecological awareness and green behavior are slowly improving.

It is worth noting that its influence has a certain time lag and exists over a long period of time and gradually strengthens. The reason for this result may be that the influence of informal systems such as culture and religion on individual behavior is slow and far-reaching [29]. This also indicates that ecological culture construction needs to be continuously strengthened and improved.

6.2. Urban Ecological Culture Construction Helps to Promote Public Environmental Protection Participation and Enhance Residents’ Green Consumption Awareness to Promote the Formation of Urban Residents’ Green Living

Based on the above direct impact results, the coefficient of Cul has a significant impact on the carbon emissions of urban residents in electricity, transportation, and heating, and has no significant impact on the carbon emissions of living gas, indicating that urban ecological culture construction has an impact on the transportation and living of residents, and that urban residents have different “degrees of dependence” on the carbon emissions of different categories of life. Comparatively speaking, residents’ choices of electricity and transportation are more flexible. Residents may be more willing to choose to buy energy-saving products and take public transportation to reduce carbon emissions from electricity consumption and transportation, thus reducing the carbon intensity of their lives. However, there may be some rigidity in the demand for natural gas, which is not easy to change to a certain extent.

Further mechanistic analysis shows that urban ecological culture construction promotes public environmental protection participation and residents’ green consumption awareness. This is specifically embodied in the ecological culture construction process to increase ecological publicity and dissemination of environmental protection concepts to guide the residents to participate in environmental protection. In this way, residents gradually realize the conversion from “passive participation” to “active participation”. The result is that in their daily lives, they actively participate in environmental management, reduce electricity consumption, and increase the use of public transportation, which correspondingly reduces the carbon emissions of urban residents in the three areas of electricity consumption, heating, and transportation. This ultimately reduces the carbon emission intensity of residents’ lives, i.e., it promotes the formation of residents’ green living.

6.3. The Moderating Role of Confucianism

The analysis of the moderating effect found that Confucianism positively moderates the intensity of the role of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green living, and this moderating effect still exists, even under the impact of foreign culture.

There may be two reasons for this phenomenon: first, Confucian culture contains ecological ideas, as described in this paper [49], such as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). The modern concept of ecological civilization is rooted in Confucianism, which provides traditional cultural support for ecological civilization in the new era. Second, Confucian culture is an influential tool. It increases the sense of cultural identity among urban residents, thus facilitating the formation of an atmosphere of mutual supervision and influence. Therefore, the successful implementation of national environmental policies requires a contextualized design that takes into account the local environment and cultural background.

6.4. Contribution and Limitations

This study can provide a basis for the government to encourage, support, and guide residents to practice green behaviors in today’s multicultural environment. In terms of methodology, the use of difference-in-differences model can avoid the endogenous problem to some degree, thus inferring the real causal effect of the urban ecological culture construction and residents’ green living. Meanwhile, this paper takes National Forest Cities in China as a research opportunity because it has specific ecological culture construction contents and standards. In addition, the integration effect of modern ecological culture construction and regional traditional culture is empirically examined. Studies on Confucianism have focused on how Confucianism influences executives’ decision-making behavior [36,37] and cultural identity [38,39], yet minimal literature has focused on the ecological thinking aspect of Confucianism. This paper enriches the field while expanding it somewhat and has theoretical value for expanding the study of ecological culture and practical value for the widespread formation of green living.

There are some limitations that need further improvement. First, the concept of ecological culture is not precisely operationalized. Although ecological culture construction is a key part of the National Forest City, this study fully considered the conditions for the city to obtain the title of “National Forest City”. Therefore, the influence of forest green space was controlled in the research process. Still, it is hoped that better representative indicators will be available in the future. Second, due to the limited space, this study did not explore the individual-level characteristics. Future research could focus on this aspect, such as social responsibility and self-construction. Third, there are still some confounding variables, especially the time-varying variables, which may confound the results.

Therefore, future studies need to operationalize this concept from more dimensions, deeply exploring the pathways. In particular, the researchers need to pay more attention to and control other possible confounding factors and use more effective models to objectively evaluate the impact of ecological culture construction on residents’ green living.

7. Conclusions

This paper not only verifies the theoretical significance of urban ecological culture construction, but also further points out the specific path of influence of urban ecological culture construction on residents’ green living, as well as the moderating role of Confucianism in it. These have important theoretical value for expanding the study of ecological culture, and important practical value for the extensive formation of green production and lifestyle. Based on the above research conclusions, the following suggestions are put forward:

• Deepen the connotation of urban ecological culture construction. In the future, we should continue to promote the organic integration of the region’s traditional excellent ecological genes and the ecological culture construction so as to make it an enabler for the ecological civilization construction.
• Improve relevant policies that incentivize public participation and green consumption. For example, incentive policies should be formulated in the area of living, such as residential electricity consumption and transportation. This is because the environmental policies in the production area are relatively mature, while the relevant policies in the living area are just starting out. Countries can focus their policies not only on the enterprise level, but also on the individual level, according to their own national conditions.
• Strengthening publicity for green living and organizing green practical activities. Specific measures may include: (1) popular science education on ecological knowledge in order to enhance awareness of low-carbon actions and publicize the concept of low-carbon living. For example, setting an example through proper behavior by community leaders, using social media to guide residents; (2) carrying out mass ecological civilization practice activities, such as voluntary tree-planting, green transportation, and energy conservation. These behaviors will drive residents to realize the leap of “understanding environmental protection—supporting environmental protection—participating in environmental protection”. Eventually, a new social trend of practicing ecological civilization will be formed for everyone, in everything, everywhere, and all the time.