Green transformation: How LCCP policy shapes the high-quality sports product exports

With the effects of global climate change becoming increasingly critical, low-carbon transformation is an essential strategy for promoting sustainable economic advancement in every field. As the world’s largest carbon emitter, China is proactively implementing the Low-Carbon City Pilot (LCCP) policy to drive the economic system’s sustainable transformation. Under the green policy framework, the nation’s sports products’ quality not only needs to be improved, but also involves two major tasks of becoming a trading power and a sports power. Therefore, how the policy impacts sports product quality is a question worthy of investigation. This study constructs a quality indicator for exported sports products and uses city-level panel data to examine how LCCP policy implementation impacts exported sports products’ quality and investigate the mechanisms and differences in policy execution. The results reveal that LCCP policy implementation can significantly boost exported sports products’ quality by advancing technological innovation, refining industrial structures, and fostering the digital economy. In terms of heterogeneity, the policy has positive effects on high- and low-tech sports products and in coastal and inland cities. It also has pronounced effects in non-resource-based cities and areas with vigorous law enforcement. Additionally, the LCCP policy promotes the export quality catch-up effect, showing the high-quality pursuit in China’s sports trade. Therefore, policymakers should increase the number of low-carbon pilot cities, promote green transformation in the sports trade, and accelerate the pace of building a trade power.