مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

In recent decades, climate change has become an increasingly important environmental issue affecting sustainable development (Avci et al., 2014; Cachon, 2014). As such, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, a major contributor to climate change, has been paid greater attention (Higgins et al., 2011; Pan et al., 2013; Cachon, 2014; Avci et al., 2014). A possible mode of reducing emissions and saving energy is the implementation of a carbon reduction labeling scheme that measures carbon dioxide, or its equivalent greenhouse gas emissions, based on a full lifecycle assessment of a product or service (Carbon Trust, 2008). Such a scheme serves as an effective tool for encouraging individuals to change their consumption behavior in a way that will benefit the environment by providing carbon emissions information on products and services (Young et al., 2010; Liu et al., 2016). As carbon reduction labeling schemes are still in their infancy in various countries such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Japan (Tan et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2016), well-designed governmental policies are crucial to promote low-carbon development (Cohen and Vandenbergh, 2012; Kanada et al., 2013). However, previous studies have focused on carbon labeling scheme design to improve the transparency of current standards (Guenther et al., 2012; Zhao et al., 2012a; Garcia and Freire, 2014; Wu et al., 2014), enhance consumers’ perceptions (Bleda and Valente, 2009; Upham et al., 2011; Sharp and Wheeler, 2013; Hartikainen et al., 2014), and eliminate a non-tariff barrier during international trade (Plassmann et al., 2010; Vranes, 2010; Cohen and Vandenbergh, 2012; Liu et al., 2016).

Enterprises are also significant stakeholders in reducing carbon emissions (Wang et al., 2011; Tian et al., 2014). Investigations of the sales of carbon-labeled products have indicated that consumers would like to pay more for green products (Zhao et al., 2014; Zhao et al., 2015). With green consumption gradually emerging in the market, demand for eco-friendly products may further promote organizational innovation and allow enterprises to capture market share (Cohen and Vandenbergh, 2012; Lin et al., 2013). For instance, Wal-Mart has spent $30 million on the development of “green” refrigerators and seen sales increase by 20% (Fetterman, 2006). However, the additional cost of low-carbon certification and technologies, market risk, and complexity of the external business environment may result in uncertainty regarding commercial success (Zhao et al., 2013; Shuai et al., 2014; Bi et al., 2015). In this context, governments play a leading role in developing well-designed policies to drive industrial innovation into product sustainability and thus promote sustainable performance (Kanada et al., 2013; Choi, 2015). Sustainable performance requires coordination among all participating agents to work together to create a win–win outcome (Choi, 2015). However, it is difficult to visualize the performance of these policies, due to the complexity of a sustainable operation for all the participants, e.g., trustworthy and loyal partnership (Myeong et al., 2014; Choi, 2014, 2015). Additionally, inflexible policymaking may be ineffective if enterprises do not respond actively (Kane, 2010).

This study proposes an evolutionary game theoretical approach that models the likely behavior of enterprises in response to a number of governmental policy instruments such as financial subsidies and taxation related to the implementation of a carbon reduction labeling scheme. System dynamics (SD) is applied to simulate the created game model followed by two major scenarios, in which enterprises’ actions are determined according to individual and combined policy interventions. The application of game theory is expected to help enterprises take positive actions toward carbon emissions reduction by implementing a carbon reduction labeling scheme, thereby providing insight into the design of sustainability policies that promote lowcarbon development.