Recycled Content Declaration (ISO 14021)

ISO 14021:2016 (Environmental labels and declarations — Self-declared environmental claims) establishes the rules for making self-declared Type II environmental claims, of which recycled content is the most commercially significant. The standard distinguishes between pre-consumer recycled material — manufacturing waste and off-cuts that have been diverted from landfill and reintroduced to production without ever reaching an end consumer — and post-consumer recycled material, which has completed its intended consumer use and been collected, processed, and reintroduced into the material stream. This distinction matters because post-consumer recycled content commands a significant price and credibility premium over pre-consumer, and claiming the former when you have the latter is one of the most common green claims violations identified by consumer protection regulators.

The calculation methodology requires that recycled content be expressed as a percentage by weight of the total material in the product or packaging unit. ISO 14021 requires that the claim be specific — stating what percentage is recycled and from what source — and that adequate documentation exist to verify the claim if challenged. The standard prohibits vague qualitative claims such as 'contains recycled materials' without the supporting percentage data. The revised 2016 edition added requirements on chain-of-custody traceability, meaning that companies relying on mass balance accounting must be able to demonstrate that the amount of recycled material credited to their products does not exceed the volume of certified recycled feedstock purchased.

The EU Green Claims Directive (2024) explicitly references ISO 14021 as the acceptable methodology for recycled content self-declarations and requires that such claims be verifiable on request by national enforcement authorities. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) Green Claims Code similarly calls out unverified recycled content claims as a priority enforcement area. Sustalium generates the self-declaration in the format required by both frameworks — including the percentage, the calculation basis, and the evidence reference — and maintains the supporting documentation so you can respond to an enforcement request within hours rather than weeks.