The work aims to evaluate the multidimensional textual structure of national policies concerning the green transformation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) packaging for liquid foods, examine green-packaging evidence in corporate disclosures, and identify structural differences across shared thematic dimensions. Ten national-level policies issued during the observation period were assessed using a policy modeling consistency (PMC) index comprising 9 primary and 36 secondary variables. Five annual sustainability or environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports for the 2024 reporting year, each with a clearly identifiable Chinese business boundary, formed the corporate sample. Evidence was coded on a three-level scale of 0, 0.5 and 1 across six dimensions of source reduction, design for recycling, recycled-material application, collection networks, carbon information, and value-chain coordination. Policy coverage, mean evidence level and evidence recognition rate were juxtaposed descriptively within each dimension. The robustness of PMC rankings was tested using 18 one-factor-at-a-time weight-perturbation scenarios. The mean PMC index was 7.30; six policies were rated excellent and four good. The mean score for rPET-governance applicability was the lowest, at 0.400. Across the corporate reports, the overall mean evidence level was 0.900 and the overall evidence recognition rate was 0.967. Both source reduction and design for recycling had a mean evidence level of 1.000, whereas recycled-material application scored 0.400 and had a recognition rate of 0.800. Spearman's rank correlations between the equal-weight baseline and the 18 perturbation scenarios ranged from 0.985 to 1.000, with 6 to 7 policies classified as excellent. The selected policies therefore exhibit relatively complete textual structures, but existing PET-design and recycled-plastics rules are not yet systematically aligned with direct food-contact requirements, bottle-to-bottle quality control and comparable corporate carbon data. Policy improvement should focus on scenario-specific standards, graded incentives, high-value closed-loop recycling, carbon data and differentiated extended producer responsibility mechanisms.
Key words
liquid-food packaging /
polyethylene terephthalate (PET) /
policy modeling consistency (PMC) index /
corporate disclosures /
circular packaging system
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