Supply Chain Coordination under Carbon Emission Tax Regulation Considering Greening Technology Investment

Abstract

In this paper, we firstly derive the optimal strategies, including greening technology investment, production volume and order quantity decisions with stochastic demand, for the emissions-dependent supply chain composed of one manufacturer and one retailer. Then, an advance purchase discount (APD) contract and an option contract are applied to coordinate the supply chain. Moreover, an innovative prepayment-based option (PBO) contract is designed based on an APD contract and an option contract. We discuss the cash flow, the inventory risk allocation and the impacts of carbon emission tax under each contract. It is found that considering improving cash flow, preselling (or option selling) as a means of supporting the manufacturer with sufficient cash flow will help expand production and invest in greening technology. From the perspective of avoiding inventory risk, the APD contract benefits the manufacturer while the option contract benefits the retailer. However, the PBO contract generates intermediate allocations of inventory risk between manufacturer and retailer.