Search results

The development of low-carbon production is impeded by the investment costs of green technology research and development (R&D) and carbon emission reduction while facing the uncertain risk of emission reduction investment. With the government's carbon emission constraints, green manufacturers implement the advance selling strategy to increase both profit and reduction level. However, few studies consider the consumer's green preference and emission constraints in advance selling market and spot market independently. The authors' paper investigates the optimal strategies of advance selling pricing and reduction effort for green manufacturers to maximize profits.

The authors' paper designs a stochastic model and investigates the manufacturer's optimal strategies of advance selling price and emission reduction efforts by categorizing different purchasing periods of low-carbon consumers. With the challenges of uncertain demand and government's emission constraints, the authors' develop the non-linear optimization model to investigate the manufacturer's profit-oriented decisions.

The results show the government's carbon constraints cannot influence the manufacturer's profit, but the consumer's low-carbon preference in the advance selling period can. Interestingly, the manufacturer will make fewer reduction efforts even when the consumers have stronger environmental awareness. In addition, the increasing consumer price sensitivity will exacerbate the profit loss from mandatory emissions reduction. Overall, for achieving a win–win situation between emission reduction and profit growth, green manufacturers should not only consider the sales strategies, market demand, and government constraints in a low-carbon market, but also pay attention to the uncertainty of green technology innovation.

With the consideration of the government's carbon emission constraints, uncertain demand, and low-carbon consumer's preferences, the authors' study innovatively incorporates the joint impacts of advance selling strategy and emission reduction effort strategy and then differentiates between two cases that pertain to the diverse carbon emission regulations.

The purpose of this paper is to find the optimal power structure that drives green practices in the supply chain and coordinate the costs and benefits of green practices in supply chain under different power structures.

This paper developed a supply chain of one supplier and one manufacturer, in which the supplier and the manufacturer are responsible for the “greening” of products. Then, the game theory modeling method is used to explore the influence of different power structures on green practices in the supply chain. Finally, the authors developed a green cost-sharing contract made by the leader; regarding optimal supply chain profits and green performance, the proposed contracts and the non-coordination situation are compared and tested by a numerical simulation.

The increase of the green practice difficulty of any member in the supply chain will not only reduce the greenness of products at that stage but will also reduce the green investment of the supply chain partner. Becoming a channel leader does not necessarily mean being more profitable than being a follower, and when the green practice difficulty of the leader is less than a certain threshold, ceding dominant power to the follower may benefit both sides. A green cost-sharing contract made by the leader is not necessarily beneficial to all enterprises.

This paper helps to better understand the role of the power relation in realizing the industry's green goals and helps decision-makers to achieve win-win cooperation by adjusting power relations and optimizing green cost-sharing contracts.

China is among one of the oldest civilizations in the world. The massive land mass of China also means that the Chinese people are subject to weather extremes as well as topographical variety in a country which cuts across alpine heights, treacherous deserts, lush valleys, dusty plains and lengthy rivers. With these weather extremes as the backdrop, it is crucial for the Chinese people to develop appropriate environmental control techniques for their dwellings as well as to ensure the structural integrity of their buildings. This paper discusses the protection, heating, anti‐seismic and dampness techniques developed and implemented in ancient China. It also documents the measures taken by the ancient Chinese to ensure the structural integrity of their buildings. The examples highlighted in this paper suggest that the building science principles adopted in ancient China remain relevant in the construction industry today.