How to Induce Multinational Firms’ Local Sourcing to Break Carbon Lock-in?

Baozhuang Niu, Nan Zhang and Jianhua Zhang

European Journal of Operational Research, 2024, vol. 315, issue 2, 613-625

Abstract: Carbon lock-in poses a significant challenge in developing countries such as India and China. To mitigate this issue, these countries can leverage mandatory carbon emission reduction mandates imposed by multinational firms (MNFs) on their domestic manufacturers, thereby spurring the latter's investment in carbon emission reduction. However, facing eco-conscious customers, MNFs might opt to source from carbon-neutral overseas manufacturers even at high import tariff costs. We therefore explore how a local government can adjust the tariff rate and/or the domestic manufacturer's carbon emission reduction efficiency to induce an MNF local sourcing. Our findings indicate that even if the MNF has sourced locally, the overall emissions can be effectively reduced only when the domestic manufacturer's efficiency in reducing carbon emissions surpasses a unique threshold. Regarding social welfare, our results demonstrate a hump-shaped relationship with import tariff rates when an overseas sourcing strategy is adopted. We identify a triple-win situation where the MNF's local sourcing harmonizes the MNF's profit-maximization goal, the local government's environment protection goal, and the social welfare maximization goal. This paper sheds light on the value of MNFs’ sustainability requirements and local sourcing strategy in curbing emissions and tackling the pervasive issue of carbon lock-in that plagues many developing countries.

Keywords: Cost benefit analysis; Productivity and competitiveness; Carbon lock-in problem; Global operations; Green sourcing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221723009384
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:315:y:2024:i:2:p:613-625

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2023.12.009

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati

More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().