Recovering wasted heat is sustainable and cost-effective approach to secure energy supply in cities. This paper extended the Stackelberg game model to investigating the supply chain of the waste heat recovery market. Three models were proposed to investigate the optimal decision-making for different supply chain participants. With a validation case, the results suggested that the joint decision can reach the optimal outcomes and cost. Mobile heating strategy has advantages over coal-fired boilers, electric boilers, natural gas boilers in terms of costs and environmental protection. With a typical consumption of the recovered waste heat 342 GJ/day for water heating (from 25 °C to 60 °C) can save 11.672t standard coal and 79,800 RMB per day. In addition, improving thermal energy quality of waste heat recovery can generate higher profit and attract more potential customers. •Developing supply chain models for waste heat recovery quality were built.•Decision models for supply chain were compared.•Mobile heating has advantages in costs and environment protection.