Greener to Share? Green logistics service sharing decision at the E-commerce platform

The rapid expansion of e-commerce has exacerbated environmental challenges, compelling platforms to invest in costly green logistics practices to foster sustainability. This creates a critical strategic dilemma: should platforms bear these costs alone, or share their green logistics services with third-party sellers who are also their competitors? This study explores this strategic decision and the endogenous determination of logistics greenness. We develop a game-theoretical model to analyze the equilibrium outcomes under two distinct scenarios: a non-sharing case, where the platform is the exclusive green provider, and a sharing case, where the platform offers its green service to the third-party seller. Our analysis begins with a base model of green-aware consumers, who value greenness but compare all utility options. We then extend this to include strictly green consumers, who purchase only when green logistics is available, and green non-sensitive consumers, who are indifferent to greenness. Our analysis reveals that while the platform consistently benefits from sharing, the third-party seller's adoption is conditional. Counterintuitively, sharing is not universally advantageous for promoting greenness. When consumers' acceptance of the third-party seller is high and the green logistics investment cost coefficient is small, the platform strategically reduces greenness under sharing to mitigate the erosion of its competitive advantage. Furthermore, we find that an increase in the strictly green segment can perversely decrease the platform's greenness investment. Sharing may also induce the third-party seller to forego the green non-sensitive segment, focusing exclusively on green-aware consumers. These findings shed light on the interplay between green logistics service sharing, consumers' green preferences, and operational sustainability in e-commerce ecosystems.