Supply Chain Design Optimization Considering Consumers’ Low-Carbon Awareness Under Carbon Tax Regulation

Abstract

The optimization problem for a two-stage supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer under the carbon tax regulation is investigated in this paper. Consumers’ low-carbon awareness level is considered in the decision models. Optimal decision policies, corresponding emissions, and profits are calculated for the decentralized decision-making mode. Under the decentralized mode, the two-stage supply-chain optimization problem is formulated as a Stackelberg game model, where the manufacturer and retailer were the leader and follower, respectively. The manufacturer decides the emission-reduction levels per product unit and the retailer decides the retail price per unit product. The optimal decisions are derived using the reverse-solution method. The influence of the regulation parameters and consumers’ low-carbon awareness level on the optimal decision policies, the corresponding emissions, and profits is discussed in detail. Finally, numerical experiments confirmed the analytical results.