Benefits of Preservation and Green Technology in a Multi-echelon Sustainable Inventory Model with Hybrid Carbon Policy Under Inflation

In the modern era, supply chain managers face significant challenges such as carbon emissions, waste management, and deterioration while striving for economic growth and a clean environment. Organizations are actively seeking solutions to lower carbon emissions throughout their supply chains in response to stringent carbon regulations. The two most widely recognized policies in this area are the carbon tax policy and the carbon cap-and-trade policy. Therefore, this study develops a multi-echelon inventory model for perishable items with multiple suppliers, a single manufacturer, and multiple retailers under a hybrid carbon policy that integrates carbon taxation and cap-and-trade mechanisms to incentivize sustainable practices. An investment of green technology has been made to mitigate the excess carbon emission from supply chain operations. Further, the impact of inflation is taken throughout the entire analysis, and a preservation technique is employed to mitigate the deterioration rate of the products. The aim of this study is to optimize the preservation and green investment for controlling waste such that we get maximum total profit. The proposed model is validated through a numerical illustration, demonstrating the concavity of the profit function both graphically and analytically. Also, a comparison study and sensitivity analysis are performed based on hybridization or non-hybridization of these carbon policies. The outcomes of the proposed model reveal that the decision-maker gets the maximum profit with less carbon emission in case of hybrid carbon policy. Furthermore, the investment in preservation and green technologies is proven to be helpful for improving the environment and economical performance.