Product Certifications

The “Global Recycle Standard” (GRS) certification meets the need to provide a third-party verified environmental statement proving:

1. the recycled material content of their products (both intermediate and finished)
2. compliance with environmental and social criteria.

All products made of at least 20% recycled materials can be certified to the GRS standard.

Recycled material – “material that has been reprocessed from recovered material by means of a manufacturing process and made into a final product or into a component to be incorporated into a product”.

Recovered material – “material that would otherwise have been disposed of as waste or used for energy recovery, but has instead been collected and recovered as a feedstock, in place of new primary material, for a recycling or manufacturing process”.

The “OK biobased” certification is an independent and high-quality guarantee of the renewability of the raw materials used in the manufacture of a product.

Based on the percentage of determined renewable raw materials (%bio-based), the product can be certified as a one-star-bio-based, two-star-bio-based, three-star-bio-based (60%-80% biobased) or four-star-bio-based (>80% biobased).

The sustainability of a product cannot be assessed solely on the basis of the raw materials used: it requires a scientific analysis of the entire life cycle. For this reason Industrie Chimiche Forestali has carried out an LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) study on its Fabrics line for the footwear and leather goods sectors (toe puffs, counters and reinforcements).

LCA is a standardised international methodology (ISO 14040 and ISO 14044) that makes it possible to quantify objectively the environmental impacts of a product across every stage of its life cycle. For the Fabrics line, the study examined the “cradle-to-gate” path, analysing the extraction and production of raw materials, their transport, the energy and water consumption of the manufacturing process, the use of resources, the emissions generated and the waste produced up to the moment the product leaves our plant.

The analysis returns a set of internationally recognised environmental indicators that make it possible to measure and compare the environmental performance of products, among them Global Warming Potential (Carbon Footprint), energy and water consumption, acidification, eutrophication, photochemical ozone formation and the other environmental impacts covered by LCA methodologies.

The results of the study formed the basis for obtaining the EPD® (Environmental Product Declaration) certification, an Environmental Product Declaration verified by an independent body and compliant with the ISO 14025 standard. The EPD is today one of the most authoritative and transparent instruments for communicating the environmental performance of a product, because it rests exclusively on objective, verifiable data drawn from the LCA study. Unlike generic or self-declared environmental claims, an EPD allows customers, designers and stakeholders to compare products in the same category using shared, internationally recognised scientific criteria.

For that comparison to be genuinely possible, every product category must be assessed according to common rules known as Product Category Rules (PCR). The PCR set out in detail which life cycle stages to consider, which data to collect, which methodologies to apply and which environmental indicators to use, so that all EPD declarations for the same category are developed against uniform and comparable criteria.

In this field Industrie Chimiche Forestali has played a pioneering role, taking an active part, together with STIMA-CNR in Milan, in defining the first Product Category Rules (PCR) dedicated to the Fabrics sector. This significant contribution made it possible to establish the methodological reference rules for the EPD certification of the category, confirming the company’s commitment not only to product innovation but also to the development of shared standards for the benefit of the whole industry.

Bringing together Life Cycle Assessment, EPD® certification and the development of PCR is a concrete path towards greater environmental transparency, and it reflects the determination of Industrie Chimiche Forestali to give its customers reliable, scientifically grounded and verifiable information on the environmental performance of its products.

The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is a certification promoted by leading international organizations in organic farming, in order to ensure responsible and sustainable development in the textile industry.

GOTS provides for the issuance of an environmental declaration certified by independent third parties, which certifies the suitability of the product production and packaging process, limiting the use of chemicals, respecting environmental criteria and the fundamental social rights of workers at all stages of the production chain. The GOTS certification implies strict ecological and social constraints, therefore defining organic tissues as materials with a minimum percentage of organic fibers (at least 70%) obtained from suitable working conditions, with minimal impact on the environment and subjected to strict checks on natural and synthetic chemicals.