Sustainable inventory models under carbon emissions regulations: Taxonomy and literature review

Atmospheric levels of carbon emissions have been increasing rapidly due to factors such as industrialisation. In response to this, various governments around the world have introduced carbon emissions regulations to curb the negative effects of emissions. Such regulations include carbon tax, cap, cap-and-trade, and cap-and-offset, among others. Given that supply chains are a major source of emissions, research in the broader subject of green supply chain management has experienced rapid growth in recent years. The prevalence of emissions regulations around the world has forced researchers in the area of inventory management to incorporate various emissions regulations into inventory models. Consequently, the sub-area of sustainable inventory models under emissions regulations has emerged as a very active research field within a short space of time. This paper aims to review the current literature on sustainable inventory models under carbon emissions regulations over the period 2013–2023. In addition, the paper also develops a novel taxonomy for classifying the literature, utilising factors such as types of emissions regulations, input data, types of items, shortages, delayed payments, nature of the demand, and objective function, among others. An analysis of the reviewed literature indicates that sustainable inventory models under emissions regulations is a rapidly growing area of research, driven mostly by the increased legislation around emissions. In terms of future research agenda, accounting for uncertainties, bridging the gap between theory and practice via real-life case studies, and applying soft computing methods represent some of the most promising areas for further development. • Overview of sustainable inventory models under carbon emissions regulations. • Review of 140 papers on carbon tax, cap, cap-and-trade and cap-and-offset regulations. • Development of a taxonomy for inventory models under carbon emissions regulations. • Classification of the reviewed papers according to the proposed taxonomy. • Setting up a future research agenda based on gaps identified in the literature.