Recently, to help businesses of all sizes comply with new product-related regulations, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute has launched C2C Certified® Circularity. This certification is designed to improve the circularity of products and be able to clearly and reliably communicate their sustainable, transparent and traceable nature.

What makes it unique?

1. Focus on the circularity of products, covering three key dimensions:
   • Circular Sourcing: Requirements and registry of the use of recycled or renewable materials in the product.
   • Circular Design: Designed to facilitate its cycling pathway after its use phase.
   • Circular Systems: Implementation of processes, instructions and strategic partnerships to achieve circularity.
2. Accessible to businesses of all sizes:
   • This certification is more cost-optimized than the Full Scope C2C Certified® certification, allowing companies of various sizes to access to it. It is the first step in an ongoing process that can culminate in achieving Full Scope certification. This means that, although not required, obtaining C2C Certified® Circularity first will facilitate the future roadmap for those seeking full certification.
3. Agile and cost-optimized certification, thanks to a reduced scope of analysis.

• • This certification focuses on the analysis of one major category and requirements of others, allowing for a more dynamic certification process.

 

What benefits your company obtains after achieving this certification in your product?

• Differentiation and Transparency:

You will be able to communicate in a solid way the sustainable and circular nature of your products through the Circular Data Report, providing key information to your stakeholders.

• Regulatory Compliance:

It will help you align with current and future European regulations on product sustainability, avoiding regulatory risks.

Continue reading the article to learn more about it.

• Increased Consumer Confidence:

Your customers will be assured that the sustainability of your products has been independently verified by experts and based on scientific criteria.

• Global Reputation:

Your product will be backed by Cradle to Cradle Certified®, a globally recognized standard with a strong reputation for demonstrating the healthy, safe, circular and sustainable nature of products.

 

What is the Circularity Data Report?

The Circularity Data Report is a public report available to anyone in the following section of the Institute’s website: Certified products – Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute

To access a product report, simply search for the product in the institute’s product database and scroll down to the certificates section of that product, where the report is available. Below, you can see the reports of Walraven and Alma Carpets as examples:

• In version 4.0: Walraven RapidStrut® Fixing Rail (pg) 41×41 – Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute
• In version 4.1: Reborn – Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute

This report compiles and makes available key information on product circularity, structured in three dimensions:

• Sourcing: Percentages and descriptions of recycled and/or renewable materials used.
• Design: Type of cycle (biological or technical), cycling pathways and expected useful life of the product.
• Systems and Instructions: Information on maintenance, repair, disassembly, logistics and processes for reuse, among others.

Note: This report is available for both v4.0 and v4.1 versions of the C2C Certified® Full Scope certificate. Now, it is also available for the v4.1 version of the new C2C Certified® Circularity certificate.

 

Regulatory Compliance:

It will help you align with current and future European regulations on product sustainability, avoiding regulatory risks.

1. Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation & Digital Product Passport

This certification requires to continuously improve the circularity features of the certified products and goes beyond the basline requirements of the ESPR, by requiring the following:

• Implementation of a strategy to ensure the active cycling of the product.
• Increasing % of recycled and renewable content.
• Implementing a circular design strategy or innovation.
• Increasing the ease of disassembly.
• Increasing cycling rate or quality.

Furthermore, the Circularity Data Report is also ahead of the Digital Product Passport (DPP) with circularity attributes and cycling instructions made publicly available, closely aligned to the datapoints that will be disclosed in the DPP, related to traceability and production information of the product.

 

2. Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive

o This certification provides similar information on circularity attributes to report under E5 – Resource Use and Circular Economy, and even beyond what is identified as material to the reporting company during the double-materiality assessment.

o The required strategies or plans to increase certain features can be used to report on the policy-action-target metric dimension of the CSRD.

 

3. Green Claims Directive

o The Circularity Data Report allows having verified information to make accurate, complete and founded green claims.

o Environmental claims available on:

• Circular Sourcing: % of recycled, renewable and non-renwable content and tests conducted.
• Circular Design: cycling pathway, designed for durability, maintenance, repair or refurbishment, and tests conducted.
• Circular Systems: information on disassembly, reverse logistics, and relevant certifications obtained.
• Cycling Instructions: procedure for materials identification, cleaning, maintenance, repair instructions, and extraction, recovery, disassembly, reprocessing instructions.

To know more, please visit: EU Policy & Regulatory Framework – Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute

 

Analysis

If you are interested in knowing more in detail about the analysis and requirements that are carried out in this certification, please contact us at eig@ecointelligentgrowth.net.