Optimal decision-making and coordination of the shipping logistics service supply chain cooperation mode under the carbon quota and trading mechanism

Carbon cap-and-trade policy based on market mechanism becomes an important means to restrain shipping logistics enterprises' carbon emission reduction. This paper studies the new requirements of shipping enterprises under the pressure of carbon emission reduction. Considering the logistics service supply chain composed of two competing providers and one integrator under the constraint of carbon cap-and-trade policy, this paper explores the optimal pricing and revenue decision of shipping logistics service supply chain through vertical cooperation, horizontal cooperation between providers and revenue sharing cooperation among integrators. This paper obtains feedback strategies under different cooperation modes by constructing a game model. In the vertical game, the shipping logistics supplier is the Stackelberg leader, and the shipping logistics integrator is the follower; there is a Nash equilibrium in the emission reduction decisions among suppliers in the horizontal game. On this basis, the results of different cooperation modes are compared, and the influence of competitive strategies on the optimal results is discussed. We found that the vertical cooperation of the shipping logistics service supply chain has a higher carbon emission reduction rate and a lower sales price, and the horizontal cooperation of shipping logistics suppliers can improve their own profits but reduce the income of the shipping logistics integrators and consumer welfare. When the revenue sharing contract provides the shipping logistics integrator with a share proportion in a certain range, the revenue sharing contract can generate higher supply chain profits than the integration of two chains, which can urge shipping logistics suppliers to forfeit the horizontal cooperation and help the shipping logistics service supply chain achieve win-win results.