For-profit or for-CSR: decisions of power batteries recovery in the supply chain

Accepted by: M. Zied Babai The importance of recovering retired batteries from new energy vehicles (NEVs) has garnered widespread attention in both scholarly literature and practical applications. This paper discusses the decisions of battery recovery in a supply chain consisting of a supplier and a manufacturer. Utilizing the Stackelberg game, we construct relevant models and compare the equilibrium solutions in two decision-making modes, for-profit and for-CSR (corporate social responsibility). We shows that the firms’ pursuit of CSR contributes to increasing collection prices. However, if environmental damage is severe, the firms’ pursuit of CSR leads to high retail prices, which is detrimental to the sale of NEVs. Furthermore, although not all members’ collection amounts increase when considering CSR, the overall collection effect will be better. Meanwhile, we find that both the supplier and the manufacturer have incentives to practice CSR because their pursuit of CSR leads to high profits. Finally, this paper has verified all the above conclusions using theoretical data.