Amid increasingly stringent environmental regulations and Chinese “dual-carbon” goals, the manufacturing sector faces simultaneous pressures of economic performance and environmental responsibility. Remanufacturing, with its advantages in energy savings, emissions reduction, and resource reuse, has become a key pathway to green manufacturing; however, market growth is hampered by consumers’ distrust of product quality and information opacity. This study incorporates potential manufacturer encroachment and introduces blockchain technology into the remanufacturing market. We build a two-echelon supply chain model consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer, and develop three variants: a baseline model, a blockchain cost-sharing model, and a manufacturer-encroachment model. Using a Stackelberg game framework, we analyze the optimal decisions and profit outcomes of the manufacturer and the retailer under different blockchain cost levels, degrees of consumer awareness, and encroachment intensities. The results show that blockchain enhances consumer trust by improving information transparency, but its economic benefits depend critically on implementation costs and consumers’ understanding of product information. When encroachment intensity is moderate, both the manufacturer and the retailer can achieve a win–win outcome, with higher overall supply-chain efficiency and increased sales of remanufactured products. Further analysis reveals a misalignment between the manufacturer’s profit-maximizing point and the environmentally optimal outcome; this can be reconciled through piecewise government subsidies. This paper enriches research at the intersection of blockchain and green supply-chain governance and provides theoretical guidance and practical implications for firms formulating remanufacturing strategies and for policymakers designing green incentive mechanisms.

Amid increasingly stringent environmental regulations and Chinese “dual-carbon” goals, the manufacturing sector faces simultaneous pressures of economic performance and environmental responsibility. Remanufacturing, with its advantages in energy savings, emissions reduction, and resource reuse, has become a key pathway to green manufacturing; however, market growth is hampered by consumers’ distrust of product quality and information opacity. This study incorporates potential manufacturer encroachment and introduces blockchain technology into the remanufacturing market. We build a two-echelon supply chain model consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer, and develop three variants: a baseline model, a blockchain cost-sharing model, and a manufacturer-encroachment model. Using a Stackelberg game framework, we analyze the optimal decisions and profit outcomes of the manufacturer and the retailer under different blockchain cost levels, degrees of consumer awareness, and encroachment intensities. The results show that blockchain enhances consumer trust by improving information transparency, but its economic benefits depend critically on implementation costs and consumers’ understanding of product information. When encroachment intensity is moderate, both the manufacturer and the retailer can achieve a win–win outcome, with higher overall supply-chain efficiency and increased sales of remanufactured products. Further analysis reveals a misalignment between the manufacturer’s profit-maximizing point and the environmentally optimal outcome; this can be reconciled through piecewise government subsidies. This paper enriches research at the intersection of blockchain and green supply-chain governance and provides theoretical guidance and practical implications for firms formulating remanufacturing strategies and for policymakers designing green incentive mechanisms.

In the low-carbon supply chain, when confronted with an external market offering higher profitability prospects, the monopoly manufacturer will prioritize serving that market, inevitably resulting in supply disruptions to local channels. This study delves into two distinct subsidy strategies employed by the government to avert supply disruption: a technology-driven "push" subsidy, devised to improve the ability to reduce emissions, and a price-responsive "pull" subsidy, geared towards influencing wholesale prices. Furthermore, if the external market spans international borders, the manufacturer must contend with the imposition of tariffs. Consequently, we analyze how these two subsidy types mitigate the risk of local supply disruptions within domestic and cross-border markets. The presence of carbon tariffs will have an impact on government subsidies and manufacturer capacity. Specifically, the surge in external market prices augments the strength of the effect. Alternatively, when the external market price is low, capacity has a negative impact on government subsidies. Moreover, we observed that when the manufacturer's capacity falls short, the government favors the implementation of pull subsidies. This arises from the fact that scarcity of goods tends to drive up prices, prompting the government to adopt the pull model to bolster consumption and alleviate the pressure on consumers.