In this work, we study a dual-channel closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) where the manufacturer sells the new products via one fair caring retailer in the traditional channel and distributes the remanufactured products through her own direct channel in the presence of the carbon tax regulation. After solving the single-period Stackelberg game model by backward induction and analyzing the impacts of key parameters on the optimal pricing strategies and the performance of channel members, a multi-period dynamic Stackelberg game model with heterogeneous players is further established. The local stability of the Nash equilibrium point and complexity properties of the model are investigated by numerical simulation. The results reveal that (1) the retailer’s fairness concern degree is negatively related to the optimal wholesale price as well as positively related to the optimal retail price of the new product. A high level of consumer discount perception for the remanufactured product is conducive to the manufacturer obtaining more profits while it is detrimental to the retailer. (2) The excessive value of the price adjustment speed, carbon tax rate or retailer’s fairness concern degree has a strong destabilization effect on the system’s stability. (3) The manufacturer suffers profit loss while the retailer’s utility levels are elevated when the system falls into periodic cycles and chaotic motions. (4) The delay feedback control method can eliminate the chaos effectively in the dual-channel CLSC system.

Carbon emission reduction under the Belt and Road Initiative has great significance on China’s goal of carbon peak. To better promote carbon emission reduction, based on the background of the Belt and Road Initiative, this paper analyzes the collaborative carbon emission reduction through investment between Chinese enterprises and local enterprises in developing countries along the Belt and Road Initiative. Considering the efforts of enterprises in carbon reduction, low-carbon infrastructure investment, and promotion of low-carbon products, this paper constructs a differential game model of collaborative carbon reduction cooperation between Chinese enterprises and local enterprises in developing countries along the Belt and Road Initiative. By horizontally comparing Nash non-cooperative mode, Stackelberg master-slave mode, and cooperative mode, the results shows that Chinese enterprises can encourage local enterprises in developing countries along the Belt and Road Initiative to coordinate carbon emission reduction through subsidies, which is Stackelberg master-slave mode. Under the cooperative mode, with the maximum carbon emission reduction efforts of both parties, the total benefit of carbon emission reduction reaches the optimal Pareto equilibrium. In addition, this paper also discusses the influence of related factors on the benefits of carbon emission reduction.

Joint distribution is an advanced logistics organization model for improving the quality and efficiency of express logistics industry and achieves high-quality development of logistics, but the distribution of common profit has always been a key obstacle to the effective development of joint distribution. Based on the background of green and low carbon, this paper explores a fairer and more reasonable profit distribution scheme. The profit game between the government and the two types of member enterprises is analyzed. By focusing on how the government plays a role in inducing the joint distribution alliance to bring the green and low-carbon requirements into the profit distribution, the strategy evolution process of the three parties, the factors affecting the profit distribution and the stability of alliance are discussed through the establishment of “government-member enterprise A-member enterprise B” tripartite evolutionary game model. Finally, the evolutionary game model is numerically simulated based on system dynamics. It is found that (1) it is necessary for the government to guide and motivate the alliance to create internal incentives and constraints. The effect of government subsidies and rewards to member enterprises is greater than the penalties for member enterprises. (2) The member enterprises are likely to conspire together to defraud government subsidies and rewards, carry out “free riding” and other speculative activities, which makes it necessary for the government and the alliance to establish supervision mechanism, information disclosure mechanism, and property rights protection system. (3) The willingness of member enterprise to positively cooperate will increase with the increase of the additional benefit coefficient, the proportion of profit distribution and the importance of environmental benefit factor; and will decrease with the increase of the cost of promoting green distribution operations.

Product competition and pollution control are closely related to watershed environmental management, but existing literature rarely investigates them in an identical framework. Therefore, this paper develops a multiple differential game model to analyze product market competition and ecological compensation games between watershed regions based on the assumption that a region can choose four strategies to regulate its manufacturers while cooperating with other regions in the basin. Then, we solve the model and obtain a simultaneous equilibrium between the governments and manufacturers for the first time. The results show that the combination of emissions tax and ecological compensation results in the highest social welfare and water ecology for all regions in a basin. Furthermore, the ecological compensation rate independent of emissions tax policy and ecological compensation does not shift investment from downstream to upstream, but it can induce the upstream region to increase investment in management. In addition, if the governments impose an emissions tax, manufacturers’ output in both regions decreases, and the upstream region is higher than in the downstream region.

This paper investigates the effects of the financial subsidy and product access policies on the performance of green supply chains (GSCs). Based on the game theory and preference theory, we study a green supply chain consisting of a risk-neutral manufacturer and a risk-averse retailer under government interventions from different power structures. The result reveals that green production can be effectively promoted only when product access exceeds a certain threshold. The Nash equilibrium game has the highest greenness and expected utility of GSC. It also shows that regardless of the market structure and government intervention policy, the retailer’s risk aversion is positively correlated with the highest level of product access. Moreover, once effective product access is implemented, the retailer’s risk aversion does not affect the optimal greenness of manufacturer production. Besides, compared with other intervention policies, the highest optimal product greenness exists in the scenario of financial subsidy with effective product access. The study suggests that the government needs to set certain green standards when implementing subsidy policies and promoting the risk aversion of retailers.

China Tarim River Basin is located in an arid area, whose rapid socioeconomic development intensifies the current water resources shortage. To allocate water resources reasonably, this paper introduces the bankruptcy theory into the cooperative game model to contract a linear function describing the degree of satisfaction of each region’s declared water demand. Bankruptcy theory solves the problem of insufficient information about stakeholders in the cooperative game. From the perspective of the cooperative game’s stability, the bankruptcy allocation stability index (BASI) is used to evaluate and compare water resource allocation results in the Tarim River Basin in 2025 and 2030 under different scenarios. Moreover, this paper uses the improved TOPSIS model to build the harmony index of water-economy-environment (HWEE) to evaluate the harmony of water resources, economy, and environment in each region. The results show that the model is more suitable for the actual water allocation game and has a good application value than the classical bankruptcy theory. Moreover, the stability index and HWEE proposed in this paper also have better applicability, and the allocation scheme with the same game weight in each region is more stable.

In the context of low-carbon economy, consumers’ reference low-carbon effect and supply chain members’ altruistic behavior are becoming factors that cannot be ignored, while there is currently little literature which synthetically studies the effect of consumers’ reference low-carbon effect and supply chain members’ altruistic behavior on supply chain members’ decisions from a long-term and dynamic perspective. Therefore, we introduce consumers’ reference low-carbon effect into the product demand function and introduce the altruistic behavior of supply chain members into their decision-making objective functions for the first time and then build differential game models based on emission reduction and low-carbon goodwill under four decision scenarios. We obtain the manufacturer’s and the retailer’s optimal emission reduction strategies and other equilibrium solutions by differential game theory and confirm the conditions for the cost-sharing contract to achieve coordination. Compared with previous studies, we obtain some new findings. First, consumers’ reference low-carbon effect will harm the profits of the manufacturer and the retailer and discourage the manufacturer’s enthusiasm to reduce emissions and retailer’s enthusiasm for low-carbon publicity. Second, the altruistic behavior of the manufacturer and the retailer can not only weaken the negative impact of the reference low-carbon effect, but also promote both parties to actively reduce emissions, help achieve Pareto improvement of their own profit and utilities, and obtain additional social welfare. Third, the cost-sharing contract can encourage the manufacturer to increase emission reduction investment without affecting the retailer’s low-carbon publicity investment and can achieve a Pareto improvement of both parties’ profits and utilities. In addition, the cost-sharing ratio is only proportional to the marginal profits and altruistic intensity of both parties, and is not affected by the reference low-carbon effect. Meanwhile, the cost-sharing ratio will decrease as the manufacturer’s marginal profit and altruistic intensity increase and will increase as the retailer’s marginal profit and altruistic intensity increase. In particular, when the retailer is completely altruistic, the cost-sharing contract can achieve perfect coordination of the supply chain.

Green entrepreneurship is a special type of entrepreneurship that can achieve sustainable development, which is advocated for by many countries and regions. Accordingly, large-scale green entrepreneurship activities of new ventures are appearing in the emerging green industry around the world. To initially study how to promote the diffusion of eco-innovation in green entrepreneurship activities, the evolutionary game models of new ventures’ eco-innovation and greenwashing behavior affected by market mechanisms and government regulations were respectively established. Furthermore, a benign evolution path of the system was proposed by analyzing the evolutionary stable state of the green entrepreneurial system composed of the government and new ventures. Then, the simulation analysis was carried out using a case study to more intuitively observe the influence of some important parameters including government subsidies and so forth on the evolutionary stable state of the system. The research showed that it is difficult for pure market mechanisms to promote the spread of new ventures’ eco-innovation behaviors in the initial stage of the development of the emerging green industry, and the government regulation is exceedingly important. The parallel use and timely adjustments between the government subsidy and penalty mechanisms can effectively promote the diffusion of new ventures’ eco-innovation behaviors under certain conditions. Besides, the size (positive and negative) of the benefits gaps realized by “greenwashing” and “eco-innovation” radically determines the direction and result of the evolution of new ventures’ behavioral strategies.

To further reduce carbon emissions, supply chain members implement the low-carbon production process and use varieties of contracts to coordinate the channel. Considering the effect of emission reduction, this paper studies a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer. Two supply chain members dedicate to maximize profits by reducing their products’ carbon emissions under two different contracts: the wholesale price contract and the consignment contract. The Stackelberg differential game is used, and the optimal strategies of emission reduction effort, wholesale, and retail price in the two situations are studied. The results show that the Pareto improvement for the whole supply chain can be reached under the consignment contract. However, the specific impacts on the retailer and the manufacturer are different. When consumers have a higher level of environmental awareness, the retailer tends to decrease her proportion of sales revenue under the consignment contract. At that time, choosing the wholesale price contract is more favorable for the retailer. However, as the retailer’s proportion of sales revenue becomes lower, the proportion of revenue belonging to the manufacturer will increase. It would be better for the manufacturer to choose the consignment contract.

The implementation of the extended producer responsibility (EPR) for e-waste is an important measure to develop an ecological civilization. In order to advance manufacturing enterprises to effectively implement resource and environmental responsibility, this study investigates the main causes of environmental regulation failure from the perspective of government and enterprises. The game theory was used to establish an evolutionary game model between government regulatory departments and electronic and electrical products’ manufacturing enterprises. A system dynamic model was utilized to construct the stock-flow graph of the game between government and enterprises, and to carry out simulation analysis under different strategies. The results found that the probability of an enterprise undertaking extended responsibility gradually increased and stabilized with the increase of government supervision and punishment intensity; the government’s regulatory probability and punishment are important factors affecting the enterprises’ compliance with regulations and responsibilities. The study suggests that government should focus on strengthening environmental regulations from the aspects of improving laws and regulations, establishing a regular monitoring system and innovating incentive and constraint mechanism.