Abstract: Under the government's low-carbon regulation, manufacturers and third-party detection institutions may conspire to seek rent, which leads to the frequent occurrence of “pseudo-green products” on the market. This paper builds a tripartite evolutionary game model consisting of government, manufacturers, and third-party detection institutions. On this basis, the combination of stable strategies and implementation conditions for each participant are explored. Finally, through numerical simulation analysis, the impact of multiple factors, including the rent-seeking and speculative cost of manufacturers, the cost difference between producing high and low green products, the rent-seeking cost and benefits of third-party detection institutions, and the incentives and punishments for manufacturers and third-party detection institutions by government, on strategy selections of three participants and the stability of system optimization is discussed, to provide reference for government incentive and regulatory policies with the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutralization.

Key words: optimization of low-carbon production, rent-seeking conspiracy, evolutionary game