Modelling a closed-loop supply chain with a heterogeneous fleet under carbon emission reduction policy

Abstract The paper studies a closed loop supply chain (CLSC) focusing on managing, scheduling and routing problems to achieve economical and environmental sustainability. Generally, a logistic based green supply chain is studied to help multiple stakeholders. Here, we investigate the CLSC to reduce the total transportation cost including carbon emission from a heterogeneous fleet with limited capacity. The forward chain includes manufacturers, depots, distributors/collectors and customers. In the reverse chain, the distributors collect the returned items and sort into three groups through quality-screening and send them to the secondary chain facilities (emerging markets or decomposition centres) which one is fitted. This investigation is contributed by all the demonstrating issues through considering customers’ demand, an extensive emission display and the vulnerability of an expanded convey of vehicles. The proposed model addresses four distinct environmental policies viz. cap, carbon tax, cap-and-purchase and cap-and-sale for carbon emission regulations. The model is formulated in the framework of mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP), and an exact approach is employed to obtain the optimal solution. The theoretical results of the model are verified through numerical examples. A comprehensive analysis is presented to monitor the rate of return products and various fleet transporting parameters.