Under the current carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, the high energy consumption and high emissions of copper smelting enterprises have become more pronounced. How to fully tap the potential of waste heat recovery in the production processes while leveraging the synergistic mechanism of the carbon market and green certificate market has gradually become a key factor in the low-carbon transformation of this industry. To address these problems, a low-carbon optimization strategy for copper smelting enterprises involving waste heat recovery and carbon-green certificate joint trading is proposed. First, the differential process regulation characteristics of typical copper smelting processes are classified, and a waste heat recovery model is constructed to fully exploit the energy-saving and carbon-reduction potential of waste heat resources; Second, full-process carbon emissions of copper smelting are quantified, integrating a stepped carbon trading mechanism with green certificate trading to establish a carbon-green certificate joint trading framework; Finally, a full-process low-carbon optimization strategy is formulated considering actual production constraints of enterprises. The results of the case study show that the proposed strategy can achieve synergistic optimization of economic and low-carbon benefits on the premise of ensuring production safety, providing a reference for the low-carbon transformation of energy-extensive industries.