Policy-driving mechanisms of circular economy transition: a content analysis of China’s express packaging policies and regulations (2007–2025)

1 Introduction

Against the backdrop of global challenges such as climate change and environmental pollution, the circular economy has emerged as a core pathway for advancing sustainable development, serving as a pivotal model for achieving efficient resource utilization and environmentally friendly growth (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2021; Chen and Wen, 2025). As a critical practice area within the circular economy, green packaging effectively mitigates the environmental impacts of traditional packaging through measures such as material reduction, recycling, and biodegradable substitution (OECD, 2019).

China is the world’s largest express delivery market, with its business volume ranking first globally for 11 consecutive years. By July 2025, the volume had exceeded 100 billion pieces, accounting for nearly 70% of the global total (SPB, 2025). Concurrently, the waste packaging materials generated by the express industry impose severe environmental pressure, threatening to become a substantial burden on China’s environment (Li et al., 2025; Fan et al., 2017; Su et al., 2020). In 2023, the total weight of express packaging waste in China reached 20 million tons (Xinhua News Agency, 2025), while the overall recycling rate remained below 20% (ESER, Energy Foundation, 2024; You and Hou, 2023). Between 2017 and 2022, carbon emissions from the express industry surged from 18.37 million tons to 55.65 million tons, representing an increase of over 200% in 5 years and a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 25% (Greenpeace, 2023). Characterized by the dynamic diffusion of pollutants and the complexity of governance responsibilities, the management of express packaging waste directly impacts the progress of China’s “dual carbon” objectives.

Traditional circular-economy research mostly relies on the principles of “reduce, reuse, and recycle” to achieve closed-loop resource flow. The principles of “reduce, reuse, and recycle” (Mu and He, 2023), emphasizing improved design and production practices to eliminate the concept of traditional waste and to reincorporate resources from end-of-life products back into raw material inputs (Romero-Hernández and Romero, 2018). In this way, the issues associated with linear, waste-generating value chains are addressed (Avilés-Palacios and Rodríguez-Olalla, 2021). Scholars widely regard the circular economy as a pivotal economic model for addressing sustainable development challenges (Chedrak et al., 2023; Geissdoerfer et al., 2017), advocating that a more circular economy should be the objective of both economic and environmental policies (Hill, 2015).

Chinese research on circular economy policies has developed diverse perspectives. Some scholars have constructed an object-subject-policy model based on circular economy principles (Zhu and Huang, 2005). Others have explained the driving paths of circular economy policies on urban green and low-carbon development from the dimensions of instruments, domains, and objectives (Yan, 2021). While these theories provide important analytical references for this study, existing research on the policy-driven mechanisms of circular economy transition in the express delivery industry tends to focus on single dimensions, overlooking the issue of synergistic coordination among policy instruments, policy objectives, and policy actors (Ji et al., 2023; You and Hou, 2023). Moreover, the literature has predominantly concentrated on traditional industrial sectors, with limited attention paid to the rapidly emerging express industry—a significant source of pollution—hindering the development of a systematic theoretical framework tailored to this sector (Appolloni et al., 2021; Rizos and Bryhn, 2022; Tencati et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2015, 2018).

Internationally, mature policy frameworks for packaging waste management have long been established in numerous countries and regions. The circular economy system currently being implemented in the European Union is based on the principle of maintaining product value added for as long as possible (Stankevičius and Novikovas, 2020), emphasizing “sustainable product” strategies such as eco-design and extended producer responsibility. Notably, in January 2025, the EU released the revised Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, replacing the nearly three-decade-old Directive 94/62/EC. This regulation incorporates mandatory recycled content requirements into its institutional design and strengthens recycling targets through economic incentives such as deposit-refund schemes (Joltreau, 2022). Japan has innovatively introduced a “designated corporation” system through its Act on the Promotion of Recycling of Containers and Packaging, where the Japan Container and Packaging Recycling Association (JCPRA) oversees the recycling and management of packaging waste (Zhao et al., 2024). In recent years, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has released the ISO 59000 series of circular-economy standards. Expanding upon the conventional 3R governance logic, the standards broaden the theoretical boundary and practical dimensions of circular economy. They put forward six core governance principles including systems thinking, value creation and value sharing, and establish a refined implementation framework with 13 hierarchical circular-economy actions. Emphasis is placed on full-life-cycle management and cross-actor value-network collaboration to realize value retention, which provides new reference directions for global circular-economy governance (ISO, 2024a,b,c).

China has initially established a policy framework for green express packaging, encompassing laws, administrative regulations, departmental rules, normative documents, standards, and other relevant instruments. However, in the practical promotion of the circular economy transition, significant shortcomings persist in the coordination among policy objectives, policy instruments, and policy actors, severely constraining the effectiveness of policy implementation.

Taking China’s express packaging policies as a case study, this research constructs a three-dimensional analytical framework of “Policy Objectives–Policy Instruments–Policy Actors.” The core research questions are as follows: (1) Analyze the mechanism through which the three-dimensional elements (objectives, instruments, and actors) drive the circular economy transition, and summarize the key challenges therein; (2) Propose an optimization pathway for the green packaging governance system, grounded in the context of China’s circular economy transition and international experience.

This paper proceeds with six sections. Following the introduction, Section 2 outlines the research design, Section 3 describes the materials and methods, Section 4 presents the results, Section 5 provides the discussion, and Section 6 concludes with limitations and future research directions.

2 Research design

2.1 Analysis framework

Policy texts embody policymakers’ public functions and governance intentions. When constructing analytical dimensions for policy texts, researchers should fully cover key links in policy operation and fit the governance reality of the express-packaging sector. Policy objectives reflect the outcomes policymakers expect to achieve through policy implementation; policy instruments provide practical paths to reach these objectives; diverse policy actors undertake the tasks of putting policy instruments into practice. The three dimensions are not mutually independent. Policy objectives set the direction for the selection of policy instruments; different policy actors employ differentiated policy instruments according to their respective rights and responsibilities; the implementation capacity and behavioral preferences of various actors, in turn, constrain the delivery effect of policy objectives. The absence of any single dimension makes it impossible to fully reveal the internal mechanisms through which express-packaging policies promote the transition to a circular economy. Based on Chinese express packaging policy texts from 2007 to 2025, this study adopts the policy instrument classification framework proposed by Howlett and Ramesh (Howlett and Ramesh, 2003). Integrating the circular economy 3R principles (Reduction, Reuse, and Recycling) with multi-stakeholder governance (government, enterprises, and Citizens), a three-dimensional analytical framework for express packaging policies is constructed. This framework uses Policy Objectives as the X-axis, Policy Instruments as the Y-axis, and Policy Actors as the Z-axis (see Figure 1), aiming to comprehensively analyze the policy-driven mechanisms of circular economy transition in China’s express industry.

2.2 Policy objectives dimension

Policy objectives represent the starting point and ultimate purpose of policy formulation, reflecting policymakers’ intended outcomes and objectives. In policy documents related to express packaging in China, content concerning circular-economy transition largely revolves around reduction, reuse, and recycling. Accordingly, this study adopts the “reduce, reuse, recycle” principle of circular economy to construct a three-tier policy-objective system, so that classification analysis can be conducted in accordance with the internal logic of policy texts. Compared with this basic analytical framework built upon the “reduce, reuse, recycle” principle, the ISO 59000 series standards put forward six core principles of circular economy and a hierarchical system of circular actions. By introducing concepts such as systems thinking and value-chain collaboration, these standards further enrich the theoretical connotation of circular economy and attach greater importance to full-life-cycle governance and quantitative evaluation of circular-economy performance. This study does not take ISO standards as the classification criteria for text coding. Instead, they are adopted as an external reference perspective to explore optimization paths for China’s express-packaging policy system (ISO, 2024a,b,c).

The reduction objectives focus on source control, directly embodying the core concept of “minimizing resource input” (Haas et al., 2015; Wu et al., 2014). The reuse objectives require breaking away from the traditional linear model to extend product lifecycles (Korhonen et al., 2018); in policy texts, these objectives are typically articulated in terms of reusability, recyclability, and recycling rates. The recycling objectives ensure end-of-pipe circulation, driving the “waste-to-resource” transformation through technological innovation. These objectives are often linked in policy documents to metrics such as resource recovery rates, recycled resource recovery, and the application ratio of biodegradable packaging materials. Policy objectives set the direction for the application of policy instruments, and provide directional guidance on governance responsibilities for different actors.

2.3 Policy instruments dimension

Policy instruments are the general term for the various means available to governments to achieve policy objectives, serving as the concrete pathways to their realization. Drawing on the classification framework proposed by Howlett and Ramesh (2003), this study categorizes express packaging policy instruments into three types: mandatory instruments, mixed instruments, and voluntary instruments.

The mandatory instruments primarily involve the direct regulation of raw materials and technologies used by producers, as well as products consumed by consumers. They prohibit or restrict pollutants emitted from production or consumption activities, such as packaging material bans and mandatory recycling rate standards. The mixed instruments introduce market mechanisms to guide producers and consumers in conducting cost–benefit assessments of their activities, thereby incentivizing environmentally friendly behaviors. Examples include green packaging subsidies, environmental tax incentives, green credit, and standards-based guidance. The voluntary instruments rely on moral suasion and public opinion to encourage enterprises and the public to voluntarily adopt environmentally friendly behaviors aligned with governmental intentions. Examples include industry certification, information disclosure, and public awareness campaigns. All types of policy instruments are ultimately implemented by diverse actors, and the effectiveness of instrument application directly tests whether established policy objectives can be achieved.

2.4 Policy actors dimension

The express packaging industry chain involves multiple stakeholders, and the distribution of rights and responsibilities among these actors within the policy system directly impacts implementation effectiveness. Beyond being the primary policy formulator, the government is the main enforcer. Although enterprises (e.g., packaging manufacturers, express delivery companies, and e-commerce platforms) do not directly participate in policy formulation, they significantly influence both the development and execution of express packaging policies. Furthermore, public participation plays a crucial role in the policy process and thus warrants analysis as a distinct policy actor. Therefore, this study classifies policy actors into three categories: government, enterprises, and the public. The boundary of rights-obligation and behavioral choices of different actors will reshape the actual operation of policy instruments, and further affect the realization of governance objectives for circular economy.

3 Materials and methods

This study adopts content analysis to systematically explore the driving mechanisms of China’s express packaging policies in facilitating the transition to a circular economy. The content analysis is carried out in strict accordance with standard procedures: defining research questions, screening research samples, constructing analytical dimensions, coding textual units, and implementing quantitative processing and analysis.

The analytical materials of this study are policy texts on packaging in China’s express delivery industry, all sourced from authoritative databases, specifically including: (1) the Policy Document Database of the State Council on the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China website;¹ (2) the official website of the State Post Bureau of China;² (3) the Pkulaw Database of Laws and Regulations;³ (4) the National Public Service Platform for Standard Information.⁴

Based on the expression characteristics of express packaging policies, this study adopts a combination of keywords for full-text fuzzy retrieval. The core terms include “express packaging,” “green packaging,” “circular packaging,” and “circular economy”; the extended terms include “packaging reduction,” “recyclable resources,” “packaging recycling,” etc. The retrieval time frame is up to August 2025, with a total of 150 policy texts from 2007 to 2025 collected. After verifying government announcements and the timeliness labels of databases, 15 invalid documents were excluded, and 135 currently valid documents were finally identified. This study adopts a broad definition of “policy,” covering laws, administrative orders, plans, standards, measures, programs, and other types. All texts have undergone the processes of individual review, filtering irrelevant content, marking key clauses, and a policy text database was ultimately established.

The screened policy texts were manually coded using the computer-assisted qualitative analysis software NVivo 15, with two researchers conducting independent coding. Coding was deemed valid if the codes were consistent; in case of discrepancies, a consensus was reached after collective discussion by the research group. If discrepancies still existed, opinions from at least two experts in relevant fields were solicited until a unified view was formed, with Krippendorff’s α coefficient ≥0.85. The coding results were presented in the form of “Policy No.-Chapter No.-Serial No.,” e.g., “3-4-1,” which refers to the first clause in Chapter 4 of the policy text numbered 3, and a coding table of content analysis units for policy texts was finally formed. The category definitions presented in Section 2 serve as the basic judgment criteria for textual coding. Based on the three-dimensional analytical framework, the specific content of 749 analysis units in the currently valid documents was classified, resulting in a total of 2,595 reference points. The complete codebook, including coding categories and the full list of packaging policies in China’s express delivery industry, is available in the Supplementary material.

4 Findings

4.1 The unidimensional analysis

This section conducts unidimensional statistical analysis from three dimensions of policy objectives, policy instruments and policy actors to identify the internal structural characteristics of each dimension, which lays a foundation for the subsequent two-dimensional cross-analysis and three-dimensional systematic analysis. The distribution table of policy objectives, policy instrument and policy actors nodes (see Table 1) shows the coordination among the packaging Policy Objectives, instruments and actors of China’s express delivery industry during the circular economy transition, which is analyzed in this section based on the distribution of 2,595 reference points coded under these three nodes.

Table 1. Node distribution of policy among different policy instruments, objectives, and actors.

Proportions of second-level sub-categories within each first-level dimension are calculated against the total reference points of that dimension: 704 for policy objectives, 814 for policy instruments, and 1,077 for policy actors.

4.1.1 Policy objectives dimension

Coding under the policy objectives node yields 704 reference points. Among them, 277 reference points (39.35%) for reduction objectives, 303 reference points (43.04%) for reuse objectives, and the combined proportion of reduction and reuse objectives reaches 82.39%; only 124 reference points (17.61%) for recycling objectives. Policy attention is relatively imbalanced across different objectives: reuse has emerged as the core goal, reflecting the policy intention to drive a fundamental shift toward circularity. Reduction objectives also receive high priority, with policies committed to cutting packaging use at the source, which aligns with the top-level design priorities of China’s circular economy policies. The marginalization of recycling objectives reveals a deficiency in policies aimed at encouraging the transformation of waste into recycled resources. Reduction and reuse together constitute the overwhelming majority of policy objectives, indicating that China’s express packaging policies have placed primary emphasis on upstream interventions, largely in line with the waste hierarchy principles of circular economy. In contrast, recycling objectives remain significantly under-addressed, revealing a substantial gap in policy attention to end-of-pipe solutions.

4.1.2 Policy instruments dimension

The coding results of policy instruments show an uneven distribution of mandatory, mixed, and voluntary instruments in China’s express packaging policies, indicating disparities in the government’s reliance on different types of policy instruments. A total of 814 reference points are identified under the policy instrument node, including 325 reference points for mandatory instrument (39.93%), 351 reference points for voluntary instrument (43.12%), and 138 reference points for mixed instrument (16.95%). Mandatory instruments have established a hard bottom line for the green transition of express packaging. Voluntary instruments account for more than 40%, indicating a notable presence of non-binding measures in the policy mix. Mixed instruments make up less than 20% of the total, suggesting that hybrid mechanisms combining both mandatory and voluntary elements remain underutilized.

4.1.3 Policy actors dimension

Coding under the policy actors node yields 1,077 reference points. Government-related reference points account for 49.95%. This makes the government the dominant policy actor in terms of presence across the policy documents. Enterprise-related reference points reach 37.97%, ranking as the second major participant in policy processes, yet they mostly act as key implementers and regulated entities of policies. Public-related reference points only stand at 12.26%, leaving the public in a marginal position within the policy system, primarily regarded as policy recipients, targeted groups for education and mobilization. All three sets of figures count reference points coded under respective first-level nodes with identical coding criteria.

4.2 Two-dimensional analysis

4.2.1 Policy objectives and policy instruments

Regarding the matrix coding of policy objectives and policy instruments (see Table 2), policy instruments are highly concentrated in the reuse stage, accounting for 43.74%, followed by the reduction stage at 39.23%. The recycling stage is distinctly disadvantaged, representing only 17.02%.

Table 2. Matrix coding of policy objectives and policy instruments.

All proportions in this table are calculated against the total of 887 reference points.

The proportional distribution of policy objectives and policy instruments(see Figure 2) reveals that voluntary instruments are the most frequently used across all three objectives, constituting 44.83, 47.37, and 43.71%, respectively. In terms of the instrument mix for each specific objective, reduction objectives show a relatively balanced reliance on voluntary and mandatory instruments, with voluntary instruments accounting for 44.83% (156/348), mandatory instruments for 40.23% (140/348), and mixed instruments for 14.94% (52/348); reuse objectives are heavily dependent on voluntary instruments, which dominate the configuration at 47.37% (184/388), while mandatory instruments account for 35.82% (139/388) and mixed instruments for 16.75% (65/388). Recycling objectives exhibit the highest proportion of mixed instrument application among the three objectives (20.53%, 31/151). However, the total number of reference points for policy instruments under the recycling objective is only 151, with only 31 being mixed instruments in absolute terms—indicating that while mixed instruments appear more frequently in the recycling context relative to other objectives, their absolute presence remains limited.

4.2.2 Policy actors and policy instruments

The matrix coding results of policy actors and policy instruments (see Table 3) reveal that the application of policy instruments by different actors exhibits significantly differentiated patterns. Policy instruments allocated to the government and market actors account for 49.79 and 37.30% respectively, while only 12.91% are assigned to the general public. In terms of the overall proportion of instrument types, the utilization ratios of regulatory, voluntary, and mixed instruments are 39.08, 43.26, and 17.66%, respectively. Voluntary instruments rank first in proportion, and mixed incentive instruments account for less than 20%.

Table 3. Matrix coding of policy actors and policy instruments.

This table presents NVivo-based two-dimensional cross-coding results of policy instruments and policy actors. Proportions describe internal distribution within the cross-tabulation matrix and are calculated against its total of 1,410 reference points.

The proportional distribution of policy actors and policy instruments(see Figure 3) shows that for government actors, the shares of mandatory, voluntary, and mixed instruments are 41.60% (292/702), 41.31% (290/702), and 17.09% (120/702), indicating that the instrument configuration for government actors is relatively evenly distributed between regulation and guidance. Among policy instruments allocated to enterprises, the proportions of mandatory, voluntary, and mixed instruments are 39.35% (207/526), 43.73% (230/526), and 16.92% (89/526), with a structure in which voluntary instruments are slightly more prominent than mandatory instruments, while mixed instruments account for the lowest share. The allocation of policy instruments for the general public shows a notable imbalance: voluntary instruments account for 49.45% (90/182), mandatory instruments for 28.57% (52/182), and mixed instruments for 21.98% (40/182), with mixed instruments being the least frequently used.

From the perspective of instrument allocation features, governments employ both mandatory and voluntary instruments. Enterprises are equipped with a certain proportion of mandatory and voluntary instruments at the same time. For the public, voluntary instruments centered on publicity and advocacy account for a relatively high share, while mixed incentive instruments are insufficient.

4.2.3 Policy actors and policy objectives

The matrix coding results of policy actors and policy objectives (see Table 4) indicate that policy objectives are distributed among the government, enterprises, and the public at 49.06, 38.53, and 12.41%, respectively. This distribution reflects a pattern in which the government is the dominant policy actor, while the public remains in a notably marginal position, with policy resources allocated to the public accounting for less than 15%.

Table 4. Matrix coding of policy actors and policy objectives.

This table presents two-dimensional cross-coding results. Proportions are calculated against its total of 1,168 reference points within the cross-tabulation matrix.

Analyzing the participation characteristics of different actors across the three stages (see Figure 4), the government occupies a central position in all three stages: reduction (47.31%), reuse (50.20%), and recycling (50.25%). Enterprises exhibit significant government-enterprise collaboration characteristics, with their focus concentrated on reduction (181 reference points) and reuse (197 reference points), while their participation in the end-of-pipe recycling stage is considerably less prominent, with 72 reference points (16.00% of their total involvement). Public participation is far lower than that of the government and enterprises across all stages, with respective shares of 13.76% (reduction), 10.56% (reuse), and 13.93% (recycling), reflecting an overall low level of engagement. Within the public participation structure, recycling accounts for the smallest share, with 28 reference points (19.31% of their total participation).

The distribution of data indicates that governments dominate the allocation of policy resources for all circular-governance objectives. Enterprise participation concentrates on reduction and reuse, while policy coverage concerning end-stage recycling remains relatively limited. The public accounts for a low share of resource allocation across the whole governance chain.

4.3 Three-dimensional analysis of policy objectives, policy instruments, and policy actors

Based on the matrix coding results of policy actors, policy objectives, and policy instruments (see Table 5), the analysis reveals distinct three-dimensional interaction patterns.

Table 5. Matrix coding of policy actors, policy objectives, and policy instruments.

Proportions are calculated against the sum of reference points of all policy instruments across government sectors, enterprises and citizens under each respective policy objective.

The reduction objectives exhibit a government-led characteristic. Among government instruments, mandatory, voluntary, and mixed types account for 33.10% (383/1,157), 33.97% (393/1,157), and 32.92% (381/1,157) respectively, showing a relatively balanced configuration. Enterprises display a similarly balanced distribution across the three instrument types: mandatory 33.36% (366/1,093), voluntary 34.11% (373/1,093), and mixed 32.53% (355/1,093). Public participation is dominated by voluntary instruments, accounting for 35.60% (351/986), while mandatory and mixed instruments account for 33.06% (326/986) and 31.34% (309/986) respectively. Under the reduction objectives, governments and enterprises have relatively balanced instrument configurations, whereas policy instruments allocated to the public are mainly voluntary.

The reuse objectives are characterized by government-enterprise collaboration. The government’s instrument distribution is well-balanced: 33.29% (392/1,177) mandatory, 33.64% (396/1,177) voluntary, and 33.05% (389/1,177) mixed. Enterprises also display a balanced configuration across the three instrument types: 33.84% (376/1,111) mandatory, 34.11% (379/1,111) voluntary, and 32.04% (356/1,111) mixed. Under the reuse objectives, governments and enterprises exhibit evenly-balanced instrument configurations, while the public has not been deeply integrated into the instrument-allocation framework for this objective.

The recycling objectives show a relatively low level of public presence in the policy documents, with public-related reference points accounting for 27.40% of total reference points across all policy actor categories. Public instrument allocation is notably imbalanced: voluntary instruments account for 37.20% (305/820), mandatory instruments for 36.95% (303/820), and mixed instruments for 25.85% (212/820), indicating a relative shortage of economically incentivized tools. The government’s instrument configuration in the recycling stage is relatively balanced across the three types: mandatory 33.24% (376/1,131), voluntary 34.73% (393/1,131), and mixed 32.03% (362/1,131). Under the recycling objectives, governments distribute three categories of instruments in a balanced manner. However, mixed incentive instruments for the public occupy a low proportion, and instrument-configuration structures differ across the three actors.

5 Discussion

This study systematically analyzes China’s express packaging policies and identifies critical mismatches between policy objectives, instruments, and actors, revealing key barriers to a circular economy transition.

Policy objectives dimension. China’s express packaging policies exhibit a segmented governance pattern characterized by “strong emphasis on front-end reduction, moderate support for mid-stream reuse, and weak attention to end-of-pipe recycling.” Although recycling has been identified as an effective management strategy for express packaging waste (Yi et al., 2017), it receives only 17.61% of total policy resources—a stark contrast to the lifecycle governance logic embedded in the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (European Union, 2024). While prioritizing reduction aligns with source control principles, the pattern of strong emphasis on front-end reduction, moderate support for reuse, and weak attention to recycling may constrain the development of end-of-pipe recycling systems. From the perspective of actor distribution, government and enterprise participation remain consistently high, while public engagement is notably absent. Advancing recycling objectives depends heavily on public participation and economic incentives; however, public participation accounts for only 27.40%, and mixed instruments represent just 16.95% of the policy mix. This structural mismatch between policy demands and the supply of actors and instruments means that, despite receiving 34.78% policy support, recycling objectives are significantly constrained in their implementation, ultimately hindering the formation of a closed-loop system. Existing studies have recognized the value of recycling in express-packaging waste governance. Most of these studies, however, discuss recycling in isolation rather than adopting an integrated perspective covering policy objectives, policy instruments and policy actors to explain why recycling, though embedded in policy goals, still faces implementation bottlenecks in practice.

Policy instruments dimension. The configuration of policy instruments presents an imbalanced pattern characterized by a heavy reliance on a combination of mandatory and voluntary instruments (accounting for 83.05% combined), coupled with a notable underutilization of mixed instruments (16.95%). Mandatory instruments account for 39.93% of the total, forming the foundation for policy implementation through path dependence in China’s command-and-control governance model and the quantitative incentives of local environmental performance assessments. While they rapidly establish compliance baselines and effectively advance reduction objectives in the short term, their dominance—in combination with the predominance of voluntary measures—may weaken market-driven dynamics, raise corporate compliance costs, and dampen endogenous incentives for green innovation. Voluntary instruments account for the largest share (43.12%), reflecting a governance preference for soft guidance. However, their non-binding nature limits their effectiveness in driving meaningful behavioral change: some measures remain perfunctory, failing to stimulate enterprise motivation for large-scale adoption of circular packaging or investment in green technology R&D. The overrepresentation of voluntary instruments thus constitutes a critical weakness in the current policy mix. Mixed instruments constitute only 16.95% of the total—a critical gap in policy resource allocation and a key bottleneck constraining the full integration of the circular economy system. Under extended producer responsibility (EPR) frameworks, producers bear substantial financial costs for packaging waste collection, recycling, and disposal, which represents a core barrier to their participation in the circular economy (Gupta and Dash, 2023; Tran et al., 2025). Mixed instruments are precisely the means to alleviate this financial burden and leverage social capital; their underutilization directly leads to the absence of financial incentive mechanisms, ultimately impeding the formation of a closed loop at the end-of-pipe stage. Existing studies have identified the cost burden borne by producers under the EPR framework. Nevertheless, most analyzes center on corporate financial pressure alone, without examining the cascading effects caused by over-reliance on mandatory and voluntary instruments alongside insufficient mixed-instrument supply from the perspective of policy-instrument portfolio structure.

Policy actors dimension. China’s express packaging policies exhibit a distinctly government-dominated governance pattern, with implementation relying heavily on administrative impetus and corporate compliance. Government actors account for nearly 50% of policy-related reference points, and their oversight can facilitate the transition from linear to circular economy models (Agovino and Musella, 2023). However, as discussed in the previous section, the policy instrument mix remains heavily skewed toward mandatory and voluntary types, with mixed instruments seriously underdeveloped. The combination of strong government presence and weak market-based incentives makes it difficult to activate endogenous motivation among diverse actors through market mechanisms. This governance pattern stems from the top-down implementation model of China’s environmental policies(Zhang et al., 2025), which suffers from inefficiencies such as unclear division of responsibilities and poor interdepartmental coordination, significantly undermining waste management effectiveness(Huang et al., 2018). At the enterprise level, producer responsibility is often hollow, with unclear boundaries for packaging manufacturers (Ding, 2020), resulting in predominantly passive responses to reuse requirements. The absence of a market-oriented EPR platform—similar to Germany’s “Green Dot” system—limits enterprises’ endogenous motivation to engage in the circular economy. The public remains marginalized within the policy system, accounting for only 12.26% of policy-related reference points. This limited presence reflects insufficient attention to social perspectives in circular economy policies (Vanhuyse et al., 2022). China’s packaging policies focus heavily on production-side regulation, with limited attention to consumer carbon responsibilities, constraining the overall effectiveness of the green transition (Guo et al., 2025). Moreover, policy provisions generally lack operational guidelines and incentive mechanisms for public participation, remaining largely at the level of principle. Issues such as ambiguous responsibility delineation and inadequate financial incentives further constrain the effectiveness of environmental education and public engagement (Zhang et al., 2025), ultimately leading to collective action dilemmas in the end-of-pipe recycling stage. Existing studies have observed governance dilemmas including poor inter-departmental coordination and marginalized public participation under government-led governance. Nevertheless, most discussions focus on deficiencies of individual actors in isolation and overlook the intrinsic linkage between imbalanced actor structure and misaligned policy instruments.

Policy implications. This study identifies the structural features and inherent deficiencies of China’s express-packaging policy system through empirical analysis. To broaden the analytical perspective of governance, this paper adopts ISO 59004, ISO 59010 and ISO 59020 as an external reference. These three standards constitute normative guidance for circular-economy implementation, value-chain transformation and circular-performance evaluation, with full-life-cycle thinking and multi-actor value-chain coordination running through their core logic. From this governance perspective, it can be observed that at the policy-objective level, current policies cover front-end reduction, mid-stream reuse and end-stage recycling of packaging, yet an integrated objective arrangement spanning the whole product life cycle is still missing. At the policy-instrument level, market-oriented incentive instruments remain insufficient to build long-term coordination mechanisms across the industrial chain. At the policy-actor level, governance is mainly government-driven, while mechanisms to implement corporate chain-wide responsibilities and enable regular public participation need further improvement. First, policy resource allocation should be rebalanced across the 3R objectives to strengthen end-of-pipe recycling, dynamically adjusting resource-allocation structures under lifecycle-oriented governance concepts and scaling up policy input for end-stage recycling to remedy closed-loop governance deficiencies, which currently receives limited attention despite its critical role in completing the circular economy chain. Second, greater use of mixed instruments, such as tax incentives, green credit, and deposit-refund schemes, is needed. Implementation rules and graded penalty criteria for mandatory instruments should be refined, and mixed instruments shall be empowered to deliver stronger economic incentives and collaborative-governance effects through green finance and diversified market-based measures, to create economic incentives for multi-actor participation and to complement the current mix, which places considerable emphasis on mandatory and voluntary tools. Third, a tripartite collaborative governance framework involving government, enterprises, and the public is essential to build an inter-departmental coordination mechanism, break administrative barriers among postal, ecological-environment and market-regulation authorities, foster market-oriented extended-producer-responsibility platforms, and expand public-participation channels including community recycling facilities and point-based incentive schemes, so as to address the structural mismatches identified in this study, particularly the marginalization of public participation and the unclear responsibilities of producers.

6 Conclusion

This study adopts a three-dimensional analytical framework of “policy objectives–policy instruments–policy actors” and systematically analyzes 135 valid policy documents on China’s express packaging industry from 2007 to 2025. Using content analysis, it reveals structural mismatches among the three dimensions. The contributions of this study are threefold. First, it introduces a policy coordination perspective to the field of express packaging, moving beyond single-dimensional analyzes. Second, it provides an operational analytical framework for assessing policy coordination. Third, it offers empirical evidence on the structural imbalances in China’s express packaging policies regarding objective prioritization, instrument configuration, and actor participation.

The findings show that, in the policy objectives dimension, resources are skewed toward front-end reduction and reuse, with end-of-pipe recycling receiving only 17.61% of total reference points for policy objective —a significant gap compared to the lifecycle governance logic of the EU. In the policy instruments dimension, mandatory and voluntary instruments together account for over 80%, while mixed instruments represent only 16.95% of the policy mix, indicating a critical shortage of economic incentives. In the policy actors dimension, governance remains government-dominated, with public participation accounting for only 12.26% and unclear responsibilities for producers, hindering the formation of a tripartite governance framework. Mismatches across dimensions are also evident: advancing recycling objectives depends heavily on public participation and mixed instruments, both of which are undersupplied; the combination of strong government presence and weak mixed instrument deployment limits the capacity to activate multi-actor engagement through market mechanisms.

This study has several limitations. First, the sample is confined to national-level policy texts, excluding local regulatory documents. Sub-national policies are generally carried out within the national framework, with differentiated governance arrangements adopted only in a small number of pilot regions. While this sample setting concentrates analysis on top-level policy design, regional disparities in local governance remain unexamined. Second, the analysis draws solely on policy-document coding without disaggregated empirical data on implementation. Although macro-level judgments can be made based on real-world conditions, fine-grained evaluation of policy outcomes remains unavailable. Third, although the coding scheme supports cross-temporal comparison across 18 years, its static nature limits the full capture of dynamic shifts in policy orientations.

Based on these findings and limitations, future research could extend this work in several directions. First, future research could develop a “policy text–implementation outcome” analytical framework to empirically test the effects of different policy instrument configurations on key indicators such as recycling rates and corporate compliance. Second, future studies could examine subnational and enterprise-level dynamics to capture regional variations and micro-level mechanisms. Third, cross-country comparative research can be carried out to further test the generalizability of the three-dimensional analytical framework.

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Supplementary material

The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2026.1946655/full#supplementary-material

Supplementary material Supplementary material at the source

Footnotes

Edited by: Xiaohua Jin, Western Sydney University, Australia

Reviewed by: Joaquim C. G. Esteves Da Silva, University of Porto, Portugal

Riza Yonisa Kurniawan, Surabaya State University, Indonesia

Footnotes

https://www.gov.cn/zhengce

https://www.spb.gov.cn/gjyzj/

www.pkulaw.com

https://std.samr.gov.cn/