During the period of high-quality development in China, environmental regulations have been regarded as powerful exogenous forces, especially for accelerating the green transformation of the manufacturing industry. Treating the first implementation of cleaner production industry standard policies in 2003 as a quasi-natural experiment, and employing the difference-in-differences (DID) model, this paper discusses the impacts of environmental technology standards on the green transformation of the manufacturing industry in China, with systematic consideration of three technological modification mechanisms, including terminal governance, capital renewal, and resource structure adjustments. The results show that: (1) environmental technology standards can have “win–win” effects, i.e., environmental technology standards can simultaneously improve the environmental performance and the economic performance; (2) the dynamic effects of environmental technology standards are proven in the parallel trend test; (3) environmental technology standards can not only promote the green transformation of the manufacturing industry directly, but can also mediate the effects of terminal governance, capital renewal, and resource structure adjustments. In summary, this paper makes four suggestions for government actions, namely re-examining command-and-control environmental regulations, paying attention to environmental regulation tools, changing the mechanism from technological modification to technological innovation, and updating environmental technology standards regularly.

In recent times, China has emphasized five major development concepts to promote high-quality development: coordination, green, innovation, openness, and sharing. As a metamorphosis of these ideas, Chinese science and technology parks (STPs) are gathering areas of high-tech industries and represent advanced productive forces. Their greenness, openness, and innovative developments herald the future development trends of China. Based on the data of 52 STPs in China from 2011 to 2018, this study analyzes the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) quantity and quality on the low-carbon development of the STPs. We use Hansen’s nonlinear panel threshold regression model with knowledge accumulation as the threshold variable. The results show the following: First, there are complex nonlinear relationships between FDI quantity, FDI quality, and the low-carbon development of the STPs. Second, FDI quantity has a significant positive impact on the low-carbon development of the STPs only when the level of knowledge accumulation is below a certain threshold. Beyond this threshold the effect is no longer significant. Third, FDI quality has a significant positive impact on the low-carbon development of STPs only when the level of knowledge accumulation is lower than a certain threshold; beyond which, the impact is no longer significant. These results can serve as a reference for China to effectively promote economic low-carbon growth of STPs and achieve green, open, and innovative development.