关键词: 碳交易, 资本结构, 合作减排, 节能服务公司, 绿色金融

Abstract: The national unified carbon emissions trading market fosters the growth of contractual energy management and supply chain collaboration to reduce emissions. It has been increasingly welcomed to cooperate with the energy service company (ESCO)to improve the energy efficiency under the carbon cap-and-trade mechanism. In ESCO contract, the capacity of the two parties to coordinate the allocation of risks and benefits is a significant factor in determining the ultimate emission reduction targets and benefits, and an unreasonable allocation will result in the dissolution of the partnership. Numerous studies have focused on the distribution of risks and benefits of energy management contracts, but they have not considered the structure of the capital contribution as the basis for determining the distribution of risks and benefits. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the capital structure of energy efficiency companies and the impact of different capital contribution methods on the efficiency of emission reduction cooperation. Under the uncertainty of thevalue of investment risk of Energy Performance Contracting Projects (EPCPs), three game structures, such as no credit support, energy saving benefits sharing and energy saving costs sharing under the support of green finance, are established to investigate the impact of capital structure on the emission reduction effect and profit. The relationship between the risk and benefit distribution of energy savings is determined by the capital structure of energy efficiency service companies. Exploring mitigation cooperation strategies should therefore begin with the capital structure, but there are few pertinent studies.
Consequently, this paper examines the supply chain emission reduction cooperation strategies from the standpoint of capital structure. Based on the typical business model of energy efficiency service companies, this paper examines the changes in carbon emission reduction levels, supply market shares, and profits under three different capital structure scenarios. We divide the capital structure of the energy efficiency service company into three scenarios: No green credit support, energy efficiency benefit sharing with green credit support, and energy efficiency cost sharing. The findings provide additional theoretical references for promoting supply chain cooperation in emission reduction and achieving better cooperation strategies. Two capital structure indicators of ESCO are first developed to analyze the optimal solutions. Our research indicates that green finance benefits operational decisions regarding carbon emission reduction in the supply chain. In addition, ESCO’s capital structure and revenue share have a substantial impact on supply chain cooperation. The cooperation strategy can be determined by adjusting the two capital structure indicators of ESCO in order to increase the level of emission reduction, market share, and profits.
The conclusions are as follows: (1)In the capital constraint scenario, the availability of green credits to ESCOs will impact emission reduction decisions made in cooperation. This means that providing capital support to ESCOs will not only diversify the risk of investment in emission reduction, but will also have a greater impact on the low-carbon transformation of the entire supply chain and the industry as a whole by increasing the level of emission reduction at nodal enterprises. This provides a solid theoretical foundation for promoting the growth of green credit. (2)Comparing the energy efficiency benefit sharing strategy with the abatement cost sharing strategy reveals that the profit of energy efficiency service providers is highly correlated with the level of carbon emission reduction, whereas the profit of manufacturers is highly correlated with their market share. In the game between the two parties, the manufacturer’s equitable allocation of abatement costs can increase the efficiency of abatement cooperation, their market share, and their profits. Current customer willingness to share the cost of emission reduction in China’s contract energy management is low, providing theoretical support for customers to adequately share the cost of energy savings. (3)Green market preferences create the conditions necessary to reconcile the risk and benefit allocation of emission reduction between energy efficiency service providers and manufacturers.The conclusions obtained could theoretically support the supply chain cooperation to reduce emissions. (4)The return on emissions reduction inputs and outputs of energy efficiency service companies is a lever to moderate supply chain emissions reduction cooperation, whereas manufacturers and green credits maximize economic and environmental benefits by influencing the capital structure and returns of energy efficiency service companies.
This study’s contribution is to explain the effect of risk and benefit allocation on the efficacy of cooperation and to provide a theoretical foundation for policy formulation pertaining to contract energy management and even green credit and green supply chains. However, this paper only examines the characteristics of the ESCO’s capital structure, but not the customer’s capital structure and expected financial returns. In conjunction with the contractual energy management contract, additional research can be conducted to investigate a win-win contractual framework in terms of the allocation of risks and benefits for both parties.

Key words: carbon trading, capital structure, cooperative emission reduction, ESCO, green finance