From cost paradox to co-evolution: a study on governance mechanisms for food delivery waste in Chinese universities

Abstract

To address the severe food waste issue triggered by the rapid expansion of China's university food delivery market, this study constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model involving food delivery platforms, merchants, and university students. The model examines how strategic decisions among these stakeholders drive waste generation. Through dynamic simulation, we assess how varying cost-benefit configurations, reward-penalty schemes, and behavioral feedback loops impact overall governance. Our findings show that effective governance requires balancing external constraints with internal incentives, and that the underlying cost-benefit structure ultimately dictates system stability. Furthermore, we found that rewards and penalties shape outcomes in a clearly non-linear way, while student feedback acts as the connecting link holding the governance chain together. By clarifying the shift from top-down governance to self-sustaining collaborative governance, this research offers actionable strategies to reduce food waste in campus delivery networks.