Distribution Network Design for Carbon Tax-Constrained Urban Cold Chain Logistics

To mitigate cost burden resulting from the forthcoming carbon emission tax to the urban cold chain distribution activities, an extended distribution network model for carbon taxconstrained capacitated cold chain logistics is developed. Under varying carbon tax rates ranging from 0.01 to 0.20 RMB per kg carbon dioxide equivalence (CO_2eq), the model is expressed in YALMIP toolbox and exactly solved by an optimization kit. By this method, solutions for the distribution network and product flows are obtained under different carbon tax rates. Results show that, when the policy of progressive carbon tax rates comes into effect, by finetuning strategies on the distribution network, a cold chain service company can decrease its carbon emission by at most 30%, while the total corresponding operation cost increase by less than 10% only. This shows the effectiveness of the proposed method.