Mechanisms of collaborative networks driving pollution–carbon synergies: A configurational analysis of industrial systems

Amid increasingly stringent sustainability requirements, achieving synergy between pollution control and carbon mitigation has become a pressing priority for industrial systems. This study applies collaborative network theory and integrates the super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model with dynamic Qualitative Comparative Analysis (dynamic QCA) to analyze data from 30 Chinese provinces and 3,111 industrial chain enterprises from 2017 to 2022. The results show that collaborative actors, collaborative platforms, and collaborative environments are not individually necessary conditions for high-level pollution–carbon synergy. Instead, synergy emerges from different combinations of organizational, technological, logistical, institutional, and social conditions. The configuration analysis identifies six high-level pathways, grouped into five models: Basic Driver, Industrial Chain Cooperation Platform, Multidimensional Balance, Innovation Assistance, and Industrial Chain Cooperation Environment. The high-level configurations show strong explanatory power, with an overall consistency of 0.957, an overall PRI of 0.819, and an overall coverage of 0.536. Among them, the Multidimensional Balance model has the highest pathway coverage of 0.495, suggesting relatively broader cross-regional applicability. Dynamic consistency analysis indicates that the configurations are generally stable over time, although some fluctuations occurred during 2018–2020. The intra-group coverage analysis further shows that heavy industry and energy-resource-based regions are more closely associated with the identified high-synergy configurations, followed by agricultural and resource-based regions, while high-tech industrial agglomeration areas show relatively lower coverage. This study clarifies the configurational mechanisms through which industrial chain collaborative networks promote pollution–carbon synergy and provides differentiated implications for regional low-carbon industrial transformation.