Identification on the common supply chain paths of CO2 and NOx emissions from the manufacturing industry in China

Since the ‘Made in China 2025’ initiative was proposed, the transformation and upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry towards a high-end, intelligent, and green status has been accelerated, and the climate change and air pollution issues draw immediate attention. This paper investigated the simultaneous control paths of CO2 and NOx emissions throughout the manufacturing transition in China. Based on environmental input-output analysis, the production- and consumption-based CO2 and NOx emissions in 2015 and 2020 were evaluated, indicating that over 70% of production-side emissions were caused by medium-technology manufacturing, and over 50% of consumption-side emissions came from high-technology manufacturing. Then, the structural path analysis was introduced to extract the synergistic emission pathways of CO2 and NOx. The ‘smelting and pressing of metal sector → construction → investment’ pathway, which produced emissions of 347.71 Mt CO2 and 639.9 Kt NOx in 2015, was identified as the most critical path to achieve manufacturing synergistic reduction. Additionally, investment demand in the construction sector seriously affected the collaborative reduction of CO2 and NOx emissions in supply chains of medium-technology manufacturing. The critical supply chain of high-technology manufacturing for achieving coordinated emission reduction was mainly driven by export demand for chemical products.