Smart supply chain adoption and urban energy transition: Empirical evidence on de-coalization effects

Coal has occupied a high position in the energy consumption structure of Chinese cities, which has become an urgent challenge. A smart supply chain, as an innovative tool for the deep integration of the real economy and digital technology, provides new ideas for optimizing energy consumption structure. Based on data from Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2012 to 2022, we consider supply chain innovation and pilot work as a quasi-natural experiment and systematically examine the impact of smart supply chains on urban energy consumption structure and its mechanism of action. Results show that the promotion of a smart supply chain significantly optimizes the urban energy consumption structure, effectively reduces the proportion of coal in urban energy consumption, and reduces over-reliance on coal. This optimization effect is especially obvious in cities with weaker resource curse effects and lower degrees of resource dependence. The mechanism analysis further reveals that the smart supply chain effectively promotes the optimization of urban energy structure by promoting green technology innovation and facilitating industrial structure upgrading. This study not only fully demonstrates the great potential of smart supply chains in promoting the optimization of urban energy structure but also provides a strong empirical basis for policymakers and an important reference for future policy formulation and implementation.