The need to reduce carbon emission to cope with climate change has gradually become a global consensus, which also poses a great challenge to cold-chain logistics companies. It forces them to implement green distribution strategies. To help the distribution companies reduce carbon emission, this paper studies two aspects—carbon tax value and investing in the freshness-keeping cost—and proposes corresponding solutions. A new green vehicle-routing model for fresh agricultural products with the goal of minimizing the total cost is proposed. To solve the model proposed, an improved ant-colony optimization (IACO) is designed specifically. On one hand, the experimental results show that the increase in carbon tax will restrict the carbon emission behaviors of the distribution companies, but it will also reduce their economic benefits to a certain extent, at the same time. On the other hand, investing in the freshness-keeping cost can help actively achieve the carbon emission reduction target, reduce the loss of fresh agricultural products in the distribution process, improve the company’s economic benefits and satisfy customers. The comparison results of different algorithms prove that the IACO proposed in this paper is more effective in solving the model, which can help increase the economic benefits of the companies and reduce carbon emission. This study provides a new solution for cold-chain logistics distribution companies to reduce carbon emission in the distribution process, and also provides a reference for government departments to formulate carbon tax policies.

In cold chain logistics, fresh agricultural products are susceptible to deteriorate due to the passage of time in the distribution process. To reduce the loss of cargo, this research integrates the traditional refrigeration cost into the freshness-keeping cost invested in the process of transportation and unloading goods. We rely on the investment of freshness-keeping cost to reduce the cargo damage cost caused by the distribution process and then propose a new vehicle routing problem (VRP). According to all relevant costs, this research builds a mathematical model with the goal of minimizing the total distribution cost. A hybrid ant colony optimization is designed to solve the problem, and the effectiveness of the model and algorithm are verified through two sets of comparative experiments. To determine which products should be invested in freshness-keeping cost to reduce the total distribution cost, we perform numerical analysis on the relevant parameters in the model. Results provide decision-making references for cold chain logistics distribution enterprises in the design of distribution routes.