Cooperation modes of operations and financing in a low-carbon supply chain

Abstract

With the significant increase of fossil energy consumption and the ever-worsening pollution of environment, low-carbon development becomes an inevitable choice. Carbon finance can help firms alleviate the finance pressure from carbon emission reduction. This research explores two financing methods, delay-in-payment and bank loan; and two cooperation decisions, carbon emission reduction cooperation and price cooperation. Four scenarios are considered: non-cooperation, partial-cooperation delay-in-payment, supply chain carbon finance (SCCF), and full-cooperation. We discuss how firms make their pricing and carbon emission reduction decisions under different cooperative levels and financing methods. For a manufacturer-dominated supply chain, the results show that SCCF will help the small and medium enterprise seek cooperation with the monopoly manufacturer, and improve supply chain's profit compared to green loan. What's more, SCCF pattern can effectively control the total carbon emission. In addition, we extend the model to consider the retailer-dominated case. The results show that SCCF pattern can help increase the emission reduction rate of the whole supply chain. From the perspective of emission reduction efficiency, it is better for the government to promote the SCCF mode in the retailer-dominated supply chain.