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C0254 - Wording of the Claim

Version 4.1 by SuperUwe Trueggelmann on 2025-04-09

Wording of the claim

In the cecAP and on the CEC certificate, there are three sections verbally expressing the claim and the related Improvements and Regressions relative to the applicable CEC Baseline:

  • Claim Highlight
  • Significant Improvements relative to CEC Baseline
  • Significant Regressions relative to CEC Baseline

They are typically formatted like this:

Claim Highlight

Prior to 2025, the Claim Highlight was worded similar to this example:

100 % of Card Body plastic material is made from Recycled PVC

After reviewing multiple claims and gaining more detailed information about the actual content of plastic films, Mastercard decided to change to a more accurate wording for the claim highlight, beginning 2025.

The new wording more accurately reflects the actual sustainable content of the card by mass, for example:

The Card Body contains 93% Recycled PVC.

Future wording proposal for products where the main improvement is increasing the amount of sustainable material:

99% of the mass of <Product Name> is <Type of sustainable content>.

where <Type of sustainable content> is one of the following:

  • Renewable Content
  • Recycled Content
  • Recovered Waste Content

Further details can and should be provided in the "Additional Information" field of the certificate in bullet points. The first bullet point shall clarify what the <Type of sustainable content> is exactly. Additional information regarding the sustainable composition may be added through additional bullet points.

Note: Cards, and the plastic films cards are made of, do not usually consist of 100 % of one specific material, but are almost always a mix of different materials, with the dominant one providing the name. Materials added to the primary material typically include additives like colour pigments and modifiers to change physical and chemical characteristics and improve behaviour of the material during processing. Additives and colour pigments are typically virgin materials and hence do not count as part of the sustainable material content. As a consequence, CEC Certificates will from 2025 onwards normally not state that the card is made from `100 % of` some sustainable material.

Significant Improvements relative to CEC Baseline

The text is automatically generated by the cecAP since 2024.

Improvements are worded similar to this example:

Total Energy Consumption reduced from 1390.0 kJ/card to 542.6 kJ/card (61% better)

Significant Regressions relative to CEC Baseline

The text is automatically generated by the cecAP since 2024.

Regressions are worded similar to this example:

Production Waste into landfill or incineration increased from 2.2 g/card to 3.2 g/card (47% worse)