Sustainability certification schemes for bio-based products
Our project STAR-ProBio has produced a blueprint of sustainability certification schemes for bio-based products. This blueprint is structured contains two key tools: (1) a sustainability assessment tool (IAT) – for the assessment of specific bio-based products enabling also the comparison of the bio-based products against fossil-based products, and (2) the sustainability certification tools (SCT) – as an overarching umbrella, describing the methodological framework and underpinnings. The blueprint provides with information on the most relevant sustainability assessment aspects concerning bio- based products and related value chains, that can be further used by policy makers, regulatory bodies, industries, associations, and the civil society.
The SCT includes three tools: Benchmarking Platform (BP), Framework Rules (FR) and Building Blocks (BB) can be applied separately or complementary. IAT can be applied by companies for sustainability self-assessment, benchmarking, eco- design and pre-check sustainability certification process; BP enables to contrast a bio-based product with existing certification schemes; FR describes rules for management of certification scheme; BB provides opportunity to select criteria and indicators according to a specificity of sustainability assessment. All tools complement each other in the thorough sustainability assessment in the light of current regulations and construct the fundamental for standard documentation.
