Manufacturers increasingly face the challenge of aligning profitability with sustainability in evaluating multiple recycling modes. This paper investigates a monopolistic manufacturer’s production, recycling and pricing strategies under four modes: no-recycling, trade-in, buyback, and hybrid recycling. Through comparative analysis of optimal decisions across these recycling modes, this paper derives key conclusions from dual lenses of economic and environmental performances. 1) Not all recycling modes boost economic and environmental performances. In terms of economic performance, trade-in and hybrid recycling modes outperform no-recycling mode in profit, but buyback mode underperforms when the proportion of existing customers is low. In terms of environmental performance, while recycling enhances material recovery, it also stimulates demand for new products. Notably, when the unit environmental impact of used products in extended use stage is lower than in other stages, no-recycling mode achieves superior environmental performance overall. 2) Among three recycling modes, the hybrid recycling mode is more outstanding in both economic and environmental performances. The comparison regarding economic performance between the two single recycling modes (trade-in and buyback) mainly depends on customers’ discount coefficient for used product valuation. The environmental performances of buyback and hybrid recycling modes are identical and superior to that of trade-in mode. These findings provide theoretical guidance and management insights for manufacturers to select the appropriate recycling mode.
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