Abstract: Clarifying the mechanisms through which digital trade enables the greening of manufacturing supply chains is crucial to enhancing the modernisation of supply chains and achieving a green transition in the manufacturing sector. Existing research has largely focused on improving the efficiency of digital trade, whilst paying insufficient attention to the network effects within its supply chains. This paper focuses on the unique enabling dimensions of digital trade. Drawing on ‘chain-based’ thinking, it analyses the mechanisms of green collaborative development among related entities—such as upstream and downstream enterprises, chain leaders and chain members—and explores the underlying mechanisms and optimisation pathways through which digital trade enables the greening of manufacturing supply chains via the synergies of supply chain networks. The results show that digital trade significantly enhances the sustainability of manufacturing supply chains. While digital trade improves the sustainability of manufacturing supply chains both through the spillover effects of information within supply chain networks between upstream and downstream enterprises, and through the ‘aggregation’ and ‘bridging’ roles played by lead enterprises and their affiliated enterprises. In addition, the impact of digital trade on the sustainability of manufacturing supply chains is more pronounced in enterprises with a higher degree of digital transformation, where suppliers are geographically closer, and in non-high-tech industries. Finally, digital trade can enhance supply chain resilience by promoting the greening of supply chains.

Key words: digital trade, supply chain greening, supply chain network effect, core chain enterprises and affiliated chain enterprises