关键词: 合作减排, 消费者低碳偏好, 节能服务公司, 低碳供应链, 外包减排

Abstract: The emission of greenhouse gases has exacerbated the issue of global warming, prompting the international community to take a series of measures. From the introduction of the concept of “carbon trading” in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, to the establishment of the EU Emissions Trading System in 2005 and its official operation in 2008, the practice has proven to be an effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Since China’s ratification of the Paris Agreement in 2016, it has gradually put forward a series of green initiatives to fulfill its nationally determined contributions under the agreement. China has committed itself to peak carbon emissions by 2030 or earlier, and has recently announced that it will strive for carbon neutrality by 2060. From the pilot carbon trading programs in seven provinces in 2010, to the issuance of the Management Measures for Carbon Emissions Trading (Trial) in 2020, the national carbon emissions trading market has already been launched. Under the government’s implementation of carbon quotas and carbon trading policies, energy-consuming enterprises often adopt two types of emission reduction methods: Self-reduction and “outsourcing reduction”. This paper considers a second-tier low-carbon supply chain consisting of a supplier and a manufacturer under the carbon quota trading policy. It establishes a two-stage game model based on different levels of cooperation in the supply chain’s self-reduction mode and a three-stage game model in the outsourcing reduction mode.
By comparing the equilibrium results, we find that the higher the level of cooperation in the supply chain’s self-reduction mode, the better the emission reduction effect and the higher the supply chain profit. Therefore, under the government’s carbon quota trading policy, supply chain companies can only maximize their profits by strengthening cooperation and achieving better emission reduction effects. Under the outsourcing reduction mode, the emission reduction rate and profit are much higher than under the optimal emission reduction rate and profit in the self-reduction mode. Thus, the supply chain has an incentive to choose outsourcing reduction mode. The difference factor in emission reduction investment is crucial to the choice of the supply chain’s emission reduction mode. When it reaches a certain threshold, the optimal choice for the supply chain is outsourcing reduction. When it is lower than this threshold, the supply chain can obtain greater benefits by choosing self-reduction. Consumer low-carbon preferences have a positive impact on the emission reduction rate and related subject profits in the supply chain, but a negative impact on the share of energy-saving benefits. Also, the more consumers prefer low-carbon products, the more the supply chain tends to choose outsourcing reduction. Therefore, the government can guide consumers to establish low-carbon consumption awareness in the process of energy conservation and emission reduction to achieve the goal of low-carbon production by companies and achieve better emission reduction effects. This also suggests that the government can improve the level of social low-carbon production by increasing consumer awareness of low-carbon consumption. At the same time, by considering consumer low-carbon preferences, supply chain companies and energy-saving service companies can achieve a win-win situation of maximizing emission reduction and profit. The supply chain’s emission reduction rate and energy-saving service company’s profit show a reverse change relationship with the share of energy-saving benefits. The total profit of the supply chain shows an inverted U-shaped change relationship with the share of energy-saving benefits. Finally, through numerical simulation, this paper analyzes and explains the impact of the difference factor in the supply chain’s emission reduction investment, consumer low-carbon preferences, and the share of energy-saving benefits on the supply chain’s emission reduction mode selection, emission reduction rate, and related subject profits.
This study assumes that the carbon trading price remains constant and the contract period and equipment lifecycle under the outsourcing reduction mode are single-period. Considering that the supply-demand relationship in the actual carbon trading market often changes, and energy-saving service contracts and equipment lifecycles tend to be multi-period, future research will focus on product markets and carbon emissions trading markets to study the issue of multi-period supply chain cooperation and emission reduction strategies, making the model more realistic.

Key words: cooperative emission reduction, consumers’ low carbon preference, energy service company, low-carbon supply chain, outsourcing emission reduction