Should blockchain be used to eliminate greenwashing for green and live-streaming platform operations under carbon trading systems?

Abstract

This study examines a supply chain comprising a live-streaming platform and a manufacturer that sells its products via the platform in the agency or resale mode. Under the carbon trading system, the manufacturer adopts green technology and exhibits the greenwashing behaviour, and the platform chooses whether to use blockchain to eliminate this behaviour. We find that the existence of greenwashing generates a higher profit for the platform in the agency mode. In the resale mode, the existence of greenwashing generates a higher (lower) profit for the platform if the additional profit brought by blockchain is low (high) at a low or moderate cap. However, when the cap is high, the existence of greenwashing hurts the platform’s profit. Furthermore, considering the government’s decision, we find that the existence of greenwashing hurts (improves) the social welfare at a high (low) correlation coefficient between the carbon trading price and potential market demand.