Research on evolution game of clothing enterprises’ carbon emission reduction investment considering free riding behavior

“low carbon economy” puts forward new requirements for carbon emission reduction in all links of the supply chain. This paper takes the three-level clothing supply chain composed of government, supplier and manufacturer as the research object, considering the “free riding behavior” of clothing supplier and manufacturer, by constructing the three-party evolutionary game model, using the replication dynamic equation to analyze the evolution process of the three actors, and studies the influence of parameter change on the strategy selection of each agent. Finally, the simulation is carried out by Matlab. The results show that the strategies are affected by the government’s punishment, the “free ride” revenue of suppliers and manufacturers, and the cost of carbon emission reduction investment. Finally, based on the analysis results, some suggestions are put forward for enterprises to invest in carbon emission reduction.