As countries around the world pay more and more attention to green development, green is becoming a new undertone for international investment. As the world’s leading manufacturing country, China is actively constructing a green manufacturing system to promote the sustainable development of the manufacturing industry. Green factory, as the core implementation unit of green manufacturing system, refers to enterprises that realize land intensification, raw material harmlessness, production cleanliness, waste resourcefulness, and energy decarbonization. Based on a quasi-natural experiment of national-level green factory certification, this paper explores the impact of green manufacturing system construction on corporate outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) using a multi-period DID method with empirical evidence from A-share manufacturing companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen over the period of 2012-2022. The study finds that green factory certification significantly promotes corporate OFDI, as evidenced by a significant increase in both the propensity and scale of corporate OFDI after green factory certification. Mechanism testing shows that green factory certification can not only urge enterprises to improve their environmental performance to gain an environmental ownership advantage, but also help them improve their access to resources to gain a resource ownership advantage, thus promoting OFDI. Heterogeneity analysis finds that green factory certification has a more pronounced impact on OFDI when the nature of property rights is non-state-owned, the attribute of the industry is medium- and low-technology, and corporate governance is poor. Expansion analysis finds that green factory certification promotes corporate OFDI to host countries with more rigorous environmental standards, thus optimizing location choice; it improves corporate financial performance and increases corporate market value by promoting corporate OFDI. This paper confirms the important role of green manufacturing system construction in reshaping the new pattern of green-oriented international investment, and provides empirical references for the government to improve the construction of green manufacturing system and for enterprises to optimize their international investment decisions.