Recycled Claim Standard (RCS)

The Recycled Claim Standard (RCS) is a certification standard developed by Textile Exchange, which ensures that recycled materials are tracked and verified throughout the supply chain. The primary focus of the RCS is to provide transparency and traceability for products made from recycled materials, offering consumers and businesses an assurance that products contain a verified percentage of recycled content. It is especially relevant for industries like textiles, apparel, and packaging, where the use of recycled fibers and materials is increasingly valued for its environmental benefits.

1. Purpose of the RCS

The Recycled Claim Standard aims to:

• Verify the recycled content of products, ensuring that claims made by manufacturers about the percentage of recycled materials are accurate.

• Provide transparency and traceability in the supply chain, from the recycling process to the final product.

• Encourage the use of recycled materials, reducing waste and the reliance on virgin resources, and promoting the principles of a circular economy.

• Support sustainable business practices by offering a globally recognized certification for products made from recycled materials.

The RCS helps prevent greenwashing, where companies may falsely claim that their products are made from recycled materials when they are not.

2. Key Features of the Recycled Claim Standard

Recycled Content Verification

The primary criterion of the RCS is the verification of recycled content in a product. The standard specifies the following:

• Minimum Recycled Content: The product must contain at least 5% recycled material to qualify for RCS certification. This could be recycled fibers, plastics, metals, or other materials.

• Content Transparency: RCS provides a framework for the tracking and tracing of recycled materials through the supply chain, ensuring that products made from recycled content can be verified for their sustainability claims.

  There are two key levels of the RCS certification:

  • RCS 100: The product contains 100% recycled content.

  • RCS Blended: The product contains at least 5% recycled content, but it can include a blend of recycled and virgin materials.

Chain of Custody

One of the core principles of the RCS is the chain of custody system, which ensures that recycled materials can be tracked at every stage of the production process. This includes:

• Sourcing: The recycled content must come from a verifiable source, such as post-consumer or post-industrial waste.

• Manufacturing: Manufacturers must document the use and transformation of recycled materials throughout the supply chain, maintaining accurate records of the amount of recycled content in the final product.

• Transparency: Companies must provide clear and transparent information about the origin and amount of recycled material used in their products.

Each step in the production process must be audited by a third-party certification body to ensure that the recycled content is verified and traceable.

Eligibility for Certification

• Recycled Material Types: The RCS can be applied to any product made from recycled fibers (such as recycled polyester or organic cotton), recycled plastics, or other recycled materials. It is suitable for textiles, apparel, home goods, and packaging.

• Certification for Manufacturers: The RCS is applicable not only to finished products but also to intermediate stages of production (like yarn, fabric, or components) that contain recycled content.

The certification allows products to be labeled as RCS 100 or RCS Blended, depending on the amount of recycled material they contain.

Chemical Safety and Environmental Impact

The RCS emphasizes the safe processing of recycled materials:

• Chemical Restrictions: Recycled materials must meet environmental and chemical safety standards. The use of hazardous substances is restricted in RCS-certified products, which ensures that the recycling process does not introduce harmful chemicals or pose risks to human health.

• Minimizing Environmental Impact: While the RCS focuses on recycled content and traceability, it also encourages companies to reduce the overall environmental impact of their operations, particularly in terms of energy consumption, water use, and waste management.

3. RCS Certification Process

The certification process for the Recycled Claim Standard involves the following steps:

1. Application: A company must apply to a certification body that is accredited to perform RCS audits. This involves providing information about the recycled content of the product and the production processes used.

2. Documentation and Supply Chain Mapping: The applicant must maintain detailed documentation about the origin of the recycled materials, as well as how they are processed and incorporated into the product. The company must also provide information about their supply chain partners, ensuring full traceability.

3. Audit: A third-party auditor inspects the company’s facilities and verifies that the product meets the required recycled content threshold. The auditor will review the company's supply chain, documentation, and processes to ensure compliance with the RCS standards.

4. Certification: If the product meets the criteria, the certification body issues the RCS certification, allowing the company to use the RCS label on the product. The product is then eligible for the RCS 100 or RCS Blended label, depending on the percentage of recycled content.

5. Annual Recertification: To maintain certification, companies must undergo annual audits to ensure ongoing compliance with the RCS requirements.

4. Benefits of RCS Certification

For Consumers:

• Trust and Transparency: The RCS certification gives consumers confidence that the product contains a verified amount of recycled materials, and that the company's claims are accurate.

• Environmental Impact: Consumers can feel good about purchasing products that contribute to reducing waste, conserving natural resources, and supporting a circular economy.

For Manufacturers:

• Credibility: Obtaining RCS certification provides a reliable and globally recognized way to demonstrate the company’s commitment to sustainability and the use of recycled materials.

• Market Differentiation: RCS-certified products can be marketed as more eco-friendly, which helps companies appeal to the growing consumer demand for sustainable and ethically-produced goods.

• Supply Chain Management: The RCS encourages companies to establish robust traceability systems, helping to streamline their supply chain and improve transparency.

For the Environment:

• Reduction in Waste: The use of recycled materials helps divert waste from landfills, contributing to a more circular economy where materials are reused and repurposed.

• Reduced Resource Consumption: By using recycled content, the demand for virgin resources (such as oil, minerals, or virgin fibers) is reduced, lessening the environmental impact of resource extraction and processing.

• Lower Carbon Footprint: Recycling materials typically requires less energy compared to producing new materials, which helps lower the carbon footprint of production.

5. RCS vs. Other Standards

The Recycled Claim Standard (RCS) is often compared with other certifications focused on sustainability and recycling, such as Global Recycle Standard (GRS) and Recycled PET (rPET) certifications. Here’s how the RCS stands out:

• RCS vs. GRS: While both the RCS and Global Recycle Standard (GRS) focus on recycled content, the GRS is a more comprehensive standard that includes additional requirements related to environmental and social criteria, such as chemical management, labor rights, and factory compliance. The RCS focuses primarily on verifying recycled content and ensuring supply chain traceability.

• RCS vs. rPET: rPET is specific to recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET), commonly used in plastic bottles and packaging. The RCS is broader and applies to any material with recycled content, including fibers, plastics, and metals, allowing it to be used for a wider range of products.

6. Challenges and Limitations of RCS

While the RCS certification offers a clear path for verifying recycled content, there are some challenges:

• Higher Costs: The process of auditing and verifying recycled materials can be costly for small or medium-sized businesses, particularly for those with complex supply chains.

• Limited Scope: While the RCS verifies recycled content, it does not address broader sustainability or ethical labor issues, which means that products certified under the RCS might not adhere to comprehensive social and environmental criteria.

• Supply Chain Complexity: Ensuring full traceability of recycled content across a global supply chain can be challenging, particularly if the materials pass through multiple countries and suppliers.

Conclusion

The Recycled Claim Standard (RCS) provides a reliable and transparent certification for products made with recycled materials. By ensuring that products contain verifiable amounts of recycled content and promoting traceability throughout the supply chain, the RCS supports sustainability efforts and helps reduce reliance on virgin resources. It offers significant benefits for both consumers and manufacturers by providing a credible way to track the use of recycled materials, and it plays an important role in the transition towards a more circular economy. While it focuses primarily on verifying recycled content, it can be combined with other certifications, such as the Global Recycle Standard (GRS), to offer a more comprehensive sustainability profile for products.