The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) explicitly stressed that ‘we must plan development from the height of harmonious coexistence between man and nature’, which raises the importance of ecological civilization to a new level. In this context, China’s packaging industry is in a period of change, green packaging has become an important development content and trend in the field of packaging. The scientometric method was adopted by using Citespace software to draw the visual mapping. Through the analysis of the number of articles, authors, keywords of the research samples, combined with the literature argumentation, the development of green packaging in the past 30 years was clarified, as well as research hotspots and the current status of the research. In this way, the development path of the transformation in green packaging industry was summarized under the threshold of ecological civilization in the new era. The transformation and upgrading of the packaging industry should be engaged in the aspects of striving to practice the concept of ecological civilization, improving relevant laws and regulations, and strengthening the research and development of packaging materials. In the future, the field of green packaging needs to expand to intelligence, systematization and diversification to get a breakthrough progress.