With around 500 million people involved and over 120 million trees planted in deserts by Alipay Ant Forest, China's "bottom-up" approach of combating the climate change through technology proves that innovations can and should be harnessed for social good.

HANGZHOU, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- As building a "Beautiful China" sits high on the national agenda, China has been tapping into its creativity to make its residents more environmentally conscious.

Since 2016, users of Alipay Ant Forest, a public welfare platform, have been planting an average of 110,000 trees in arid areas every single day by playing a mobile game embedded in the Alipay app.

By August 2019, a whopping 122 million trees have been planted under the joint efforts of the platform and its 500 million users, which helped reduce total carbon emissions to the tune of 7.9 million tonnes.

On Friday morning the green initiative won the award "Champions of the Earth" -- the UN's top environmental honor, for inspiring consumers to reduce their carbon footprint.

China, which has been pushing forward green development, has pocketed the title for three years in a row. In 2017, China's Saihanba Afforestation Community scooped the award for transforming degraded land into a lush paradise, and a year later, the Green Rural Revival Program in east China's Zhejiang Province also won the trophy.

Xu Di (C), general manager of the Ant Forest initiative, and Shen Junliang (1st L), a senior Ant Forest user, receive the 2019 "Champions of the Earth" award in New York, the United States, Sept. 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

CLEAR TARGETS SET FOR GREENER LAND

Launched in 2016, the Alipay Ant Forest encourages users to adopt low-carbon activities such as taking public transportation instead of driving and paying utility bills online.

Such behavior is rewarded with "green energy points" to water a virtual tree on the app, and a real tree will be planted when the user collects enough points.

"Environmental protection used to be a distant thing for me, but now I'm so familiar with the number of points I can get for what I'm doing every day," said Shen Junliang, a senior Alipay Ant Forest user.

Shen has planted 13 trees via the game and lost 120 pounds in two years, as he now runs over 10 km every day.

"We all hate smoggy days, but very few take action. The positive feedback from Alipay Ant Forest motivates me to persist," he said.

File photo shows a screenshot of Ant Forest, a green initiative on the payment platform Alipay. (Xinhua)

Users can even check the trees they plant as the platform provides real-time updates through photos of the forests.

While the outcomes of their previous environmental activities were often difficult to quantify, users of Alipay Ant Forest are given a real sense of accomplishment, according to Tu Ruihe, representative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in China.

File photo taken on Sept. 26, 2017 shows a salix forest under the Ant Forest initiative covering 7,500 mu (about 500 hectares) in the Kubuqi Desert, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. A total of 829,000 salix trees were planted in the forest. (Ant Forest/Handout via Xinhua)

REAL FORTUNE MADE FOR BETTER LIVING

While greening the land, the initiative has also helped the development of impoverished regions in China.

By August 2019, it has created more than 400,000 job opportunities such as tree growers and forest rangers and brought in more than 60 million yuan (8.4 million U.S. dollars) in income for locals.

Nie Yusheng, 57, a herdsman in Alxa League, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, now takes care of over 2,000 hectares of forest under the initiative.

"I never thought that an ordinary herder like me could help change the environment in this way," Nie said. "The land I live on has become greener over the past three years, partly because of my work."

File photo taken on March 28, 2019 shows sand barriers under the Ant Forest initiative in the Tengger Desert, northwest China's Gansu Province. (Ant Forest/Handout via Xinhua)

"Although the environmental challenges we face are daunting, we have the technology and the knowledge to overcome them and fundamentally redesign how we interact with the planet. Initiatives like Ant Forest tap into the best of human ingenuity and innovation to create a better world," said Inger Andersen, UNEP's executive director.

China's innovative move in ecological restoration has also inspired other countries.

In June, the Philippines' leading mobile wallet GCash introduced GCash Forest on its app, aiming to get the ball rolling on environmental protection.

"Public welfare undertakings supported by digital technologies know no boundaries. A better living environment is the world's common pursuit and our most precious legacy for the next generation," said Jing Xiandong, Ant Financial chairman and CEO.

(Video reporters: Yin Xiaosheng, Shang Xuqian, Lin Yuan, Xie E, Zhang Mo; Video editor: Li Ziwei)■