Low-Carbon Technology Investment and Cost-Sharing Decisions in a Retailer-Led Supply Chain under Different Game Mechanisms

LIANG Kairong; HU Yujie; CHEN Liqiang; LI Kevin W.

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1007-7375.240194

Abstract：With the intensification of global warming and the increasing awareness of environmental protection,low-carbon economy and sustainable development have become a global consensus.As an important area of energy consumption and carbon emissions,supply chain management plays a key role in driving the green and low-carbon transition.Following Apple's Supplier Energy Efficiency Program,this paper considers a low-carbon retailer-led supply chain consisting of a retailer and supplier.We establish a two-period Stackelberg model without low-carbon incentive and a low-carbon incentive model with two different game mechanisms(one-period and two-period Stackelberg models),and compare the relevant results with an existing biform game mechanism for low-carbon technology(LCT)investment.Then,the supplier's investment behavior in LCT and the retailer's cost sharing behavior under different game mechanisms are discussed and analyzed. Analytic results show that,1) The cost-sharing behavior of retailer in LCT investment is conducive to a " winwin"outcome;2) Retailer always prefer to carry out decision-making behavior under the one-period Stackelberg game mechanism,and it can motivate suppliers to choose the one-period Stackelberg game mechanism through side-payment to achieve a win-win outcome;3) Supplier can achieve a higher level of low-carbon technology under the biform game mechanism;4) From the perspective of supply chain system profit,both one-stage Stackelberg game and biform game mechanisms are superior to two-stage Stackelberg game mechanism. This study can provide theoretical methods for production and operation management in the low-carbon supply chain,and make a new way for double carbon goals of achieving carbon peak,carbon neutral.