Abstract
In recent years, China’s express delivery industry has developed rapidly. According to a rough estimate in this paper, carbon emissions caused by express parcel transportation in China account for 1/7 of the transportation sector’s carbon emissions. However, considering the possibility of a scale effect, it is unclear whether the express delivery industry’s development will inevitably lead to more carbon emissions. Therefore, this paper uses the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2017 to explore the complex relationship between the express delivery industry’s development and the transportation sector’s carbon emissions, and also conducts regional heterogeneity analysis. The main findings are as follows: (1) There is a significant U-shaped relationship between per capita express delivery amounts and the transportation sector’s CO2 emissions, especially in the Central region. (2) At the national level, the number of per capita postal outlets significantly promotes the transportation sector’s CO2 emissions. (3) The impact caused by the number of per capita postal workers varies regionally. Increasing postal worker numbers in the Western region can significantly reduce carbon emissions, while the result in the Central region is the opposite. (4) The Express Comprehensive Development Index (ECDI) has a significant U-shaped effect on the transportation sector’s carbon emissions at the national and sub-regional level.
Highlights
In recent years, the development of e-commerce in China has greatly stimulated the online shopping consumption of residents [1], which provides new growth space for the development of the express delivery industry [2,3]
It is difficult to focuses measure on the the direct carbon emissions existing literature mainly environmental impacts caused by the transportation system in a specific geographic scope or a specific logistics process [32,33,34], but there is a lack of research on the actual emission effects of the express delivery industry
As an important part of the service industry, the explosive growth of the express delivery industry has promoted the national economy and facilitated residents’ lives, but it has led to a series of environmental problems
Summary
The development of e-commerce in China has greatly stimulated the online shopping consumption of residents [1], which provides new growth space for the development of the express delivery industry [2,3]. Sustainability 2021, 13, 8908 emissions during driving [5], which inevitably makes the express delivery industry contribute to the carbon emissions of the transportation sector [6,7]. In order to mitigate climate change and achieve a winwin situation between economic development and environmental protection, determining how to reduce the carbon emissions caused by the express delivery industry has become an important issue in the practice of sustainable development in China. There are few researches discussing the carbon emissions caused by the express delivery industry from a comprehensive and quantitative perspective. In order to fill the research gap, this paper uses provincial panel data and econometric models containing quadratic terms to explore the possible nonlinear relationship between the express delivery industry’s development and the transportation sector’s carbon emissions.
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