TÜV AUSTRIA’s ‘OK renewable’ Certification: a step towards a carbon circular economy

With a proven track record in certification, TÜV AUSTRIA is committed to promoting sustainable practices through our diverse range of certification schemes. With the growing emphasis on renewability, our latest initiative, the ‘OK renewable’ certification, integrates seamlessly into our portfolio, reinforcing our dedication to a sustainable future.

Defossilisation and the renewable carbon economy are terms that have been circulating for a few years now and are set to fundamentally change the world of chemicals, plastics, and other materials. Whether packaging, cars, consumer goods, textiles, sports equipment, personal care products, cosmetics, or medicines – they all have one thing in common: they are made entirely or partially from carbon. However, more than 90 percent of this embedded carbon is still extracted from fossil resources such as crude oil, natural gas, or coal, which eventually ends up in the atmosphere, further fueling climate change.

The concept of renewability is becoming increasingly crucial as industries and consumers alike seek to reduce their carbon footprint, especially the scope-3 emissions. Our ‘OK renewable’ certification addresses this need by ensuring that products meet stringent renewable carbon standards.

This is what led the nova Institute to launch the Renewable Carbon Initiative (RCI) in 2020, one of the first actions of which was to set up a multi-sectoral “Labelling” working group in which we participated, in order to develop the renewable carbon share (RCS) concept. It is therefore quite natural that the RCI turned to us to implement the RCS concept through the “OK renewable” certification scheme.

Renewable carbon entails all carbon sources that avoid or substitute the use of any additional fossil carbon from the geosphere.

Renewable carbon can come from the biosphere (biomass), atmosphere (CO2) or technosphere (recycling) but not from the geosphere (fossil), creating a carbon circular economy between the biosphere, atmosphere or technosphere.

OK renewable allows to combine these different sources into one single statement.

A Renewable Carbon Share (RCS) of x% means that 

and/or

as documented by established certificates. 

Focusing on the mass containing renewable carbon, rather than just renewable carbon, is necessary to allow for a fair inclusion of dedicated bio-based materials, such as PLA, where bio-based oxygen (included in the mass) also replaces fossil carbon. This would be lost if we only considered carbon.

At first, 9 established underlying certification schemes have been selected :

The project was then submitted to an Advisory Committee made up of stakeholders from RCI, nova Institute and TÜV Austria who met several times to validate the different stages of the development of the scheme, which was then tested on several case studies in order to verify its robustness.

As with our other conformity marks, this logo clearly declares its scope, specifies who the certifier is, who is the holder (via the “S code”) and finally quantifies the renewable share

We are therefore pleased to announce the official launch of our new OK renewable conformity mark.

All useful information is available since April 1st on our website.