Decisions and Coordination of Dual-Channel Supply Chain considering Retailers’ Bidirectional Fairness Concerns under Carbon Tax Policy

Climate change has caused huge negative impacts on the ecosystem. Carbon tax policy is an important regulatory means to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change. Based on the carbon tax policy, this study discusses a dual-channel supply chain consisting of one manufacturer, one online retailer, and one offline retailer. Considering retailers’ bidirectional fairness concerns, the optimal carbon emission reduction strategy and the optimal pricing strategy of centralized and decentralized decision-making are discussed under consumers’ channel preference, respectively. On this basis, a coordination contract is proposed to realize the Pareto improvement of the dual-channel supply chain. We find that dual-channel retailers’ profits and prices are negatively correlated with the horizontal fairness concern coefficient and positively correlated with the vertical fairness concern coefficient. The profit of the manufacturer, the carbon emission reduction, and the bargaining power of consumers are all positively correlated with the horizontal fairness concern coefficient and negatively correlated with the vertical fairness concern coefficient. Maintaining an appropriate service level can maximize the profits of enterprises and positively affect the development of enterprises. Through the coordination contract, the supply chain can be promoted to form a win-win mode of complementary advantages.