Dump or recycle? Consumer's environmental awareness and express package disposal based on an evolutionary game model

Abstract

Along with the rapid development of the express industry and the inevitable trend of sustainable development, the disposal of express packaging is an urgent problem that needs to be solved. With the objective to the effective disposal mode for express packaging, this paper introduces the consumers’ environmental awareness into the framework and establishes an evolutionary game model to explore the governing measures of the express packaging recycling industry. It is found that without considering consumers' environmental awareness, the government's reward and punishment mechanism alone cannot restrain the recycler's decision-making effectively, while the participation of the consumers with environmental awareness could drive the strategy of the recycler to converge to the ideal state effectively, which is recycling the express packaging actively. The sensitivity analysis shows that the participation of consumers with environmental awareness significantly weakens the recycling difficulty and reduces the recycling cost of the recycler, which is helpful to improve the willingness of the recycler to recycle the express packaging continually. Thereby, the express packaging recycling industry can be improved better when the consumer's awareness of environmental protection is enhanced.

Impact of Reward Mechanisms on Consumers’ Willingness to Use Intelligent Express Packaging Recycling Cabinets: A Case Study in China

“…Firstly, studies on consumers have mostly focused on consumers' willingness to recycle. Ding et al [16] introduced consumers' environmental awareness into their framework and established an evolutionary game model. Their sensitivity analysis showed that the participation of environmentally conscious consumers could significantly reduce the difficulty of recycling and reduce recycling costs.…”

“…The "2021-2030 China Express Industry Green Packaging Carbon Emission Reduction Potential Research Report", released by Sinopec, shows that, if no recycling or substitution is implemented for the packaging generated by China's express industry, the cumulative carbon emissions from its disposable packaging will reach 59.61 million tons in 2021-2030, and this will need to be offset by planting trees across a land area equivalent to two Beijing municipalities. Carbon emissions Sustainability 2024, 16, 4225 2 of 20 are an important indicator of environmental sustainability. To promote the sustainable development of the e-commerce and logistics industry, it is necessary to identify methods that will improve the recovery rate of express packaging, promote the recycling of express packaging, and reduce the carbon emissions generated by express packaging.…”

The Intertwining Effect of Visual Perception of the Reusable Packaging and Type of Logo Simplification on Consumers’ Sustainable Awareness

“…As the COVID-19 pandemic gradually recedes and life returns to the pre-pandemic routine, this unresolved problem needs to be addressed. It necessitates multiparty coordination involving multiple stakeholders, including the government, people, and corporations [47], especially since packaging is a major source of non-biodegradable waste that harms the environment [48][49][50][51]. Although previous research has focused on package reduction and recycling, it has largely ignored packaging reuse [52], which can limit the material used, reduce waste, conserve resources, and have a positive environmental impact [53].…”

Evolutionary game analysis of vehicle procurement in the courier industry from the perspective of green supply chain

“…Meherish et al (2021) investigated integrated batch size and pricing strategies for secondary product packaging to incentivize recycling in the lastmile delivery. Ding et al (2022) developed an evolutionary game model, integrating consumer environmental awareness into the model, and explored governance mechanisms for the express packaging recycling sector. Kolasińska et al (2022) analyzed the influence of implementing smart concepts in sustainable development on customer service changes in last-mile logistics.…”