Investigating operational and financial risk hedging strategies in supply chains under gasoline price, carbon price, and demand uncertainties

汽油价格的不确定性对供应链的绩效有很大的影响，最近的观察表明汽油价格非常波动。汽油价格波动影响运输成本，进而影响供应链成本。例如，即使将制造外包给成本较低的地点，配送地点的较高运输成本仍将对供应链成本产生不利影响。为了降低运输成本，公司可以采用几种运营灵活性，例如重新设计包装，以便用更少的卡车装载更多的货物，或者选择更近的供应商，以减少买方和供应商之间的距离。这种管理灵活性不仅减少了燃料燃烧量和碳排放量，而且还有助于满足更严格的环境规则，强制执行碳公司可能排放的水平，以尽量减少气候变化的影响。许多公司已经纳入了碳排放交易，根据需要购买或出售“证书”，以将其排放量保持在可接受的水平。然而，这种交易会导致碳价格的不确定性，再加上汽油价格的不确定性，导致不可低估的金融风险。这些金融风险可以通过使用可交易的金融工具来对冲--这一过程称为金融对冲。这项研究的目的不仅是了解汽油和碳价格不确定性带来的这些新风险的程度，而且还将传统的需求不确定性纳入其中，以研究它们的综合影响。本研究将通过在供应链模型中整合运营和财务对冲，最终制定风险管理策略。该分析将指导供应链管理者最大限度地减少汽油价格，碳价格和需求不确定性的下行风险，并提供一系列新的管理机会，以提高供应链的可持续性。

Gasoline price uncertainty has a great impact on the performance of a supply chain, and recent observation has shown gasoline price as very volatile. Volatile gasoline price affects transportation cost, which in turn affects supply chain costs. For example, even if manufacturing is outsourced to a site where this cost is lower, a higher shipping cost to the distribution site will still have an adverse impact on the supply chain cost. To reduce the shipping cost, a company may employ several operational flexibilities such as redesigning packages to load more on fewer trucks or selecting closer suppliers to reduce the distance between the buyer and supplier. Such managerial flexibilities not only yield a reduction in the amount of fuel burnt and lower carbon emissions but also help satisfy the stricter environmental rules enforcing the levels of carbon companies may emit to minimize the effects of climate change. Many companies have incorporated carbon emission trading, buying or selling "certificates" as needed to keep their emissions within acceptable levels. Such trading, however, causes uncertainty in the carbon price, which combined with gasoline price uncertainty leads to financial risks that cannot be underestimated. These financial risks can be hedged by using tradable financial instruments - a process called financial hedging. This research aims to not only understand the magnitude of these new risks from gasoline and carbon price uncertainty, but also incorporate traditional demand uncertainty to examine their combined effects. This research will ultimately develop risk management strategies by integrating operational and financial hedging in supply chain models. The analysis will guide supply chain managers in minimizing downside risk from gasoline price, carbon price, and demand uncertainties and offer a series of new managerial opportunities to enhance the sustainability of supply chains.