A buyer looks at a packaging supplier’s website, sees “FSC certified”, and concludes the packaging is sustainable. It is a completely reasonable reading. It is also wrong, and not because the supplier lied.
FSC is a statement about a forest. It says nothing about the energy that ran the press, whether the coating interferes with recycling, or what happens to the carton after it is opened. The certification is real and the conclusion drawn from it is not supported, and the distance between those two things is where a sustainability claim quietly becomes misleading.
Arkay Packaging is a folding carton manufacturer holding EcoVadis Platinum, FSC, SFI, PEFC and BRCGS packaging safety certification, with carbon-neutral operations, which is the basis on which it can say precisely what each of those credentials does and does not cover.
Plenty of guides list these certifications. This one is about their edges.
What each certification does not cover
Start here, because the scope is the part that gets lost.
Read down the right-hand column and the pattern is clear: each certification covers one slice of a long process. None of them covers the whole thing, and none was designed to.
That is not a criticism of the schemes. It is how standards work: narrow scope is what makes them verifiable. The problem only appears when a narrow credential is used to support a broad claim.
So a certification stack is not a trophy cabinet, it is coverage. The useful question about a supplier is not how many marks they hold, but whether the marks they hold cover the part of the process you are being asked about.
Fiber sourcing: FSC certified packaging, SFI, PEFC
These three certify the same category of thing through different schemes: that wood fiber came from forests managed to a defined standard, and that the paper trail from forest to finished product holds up.
The mechanism is chain of custody. Certification does not just assess the forest, it tracks the fiber through every business that handles it, so a carton can be traced back rather than merely asserted. That is the substance behind the mark, and it is why these certifications carry weight.
What they do not touch is everything after the paperboard arrives. Our pages on SFI certified packaging and certified forest supply chains go into the sourcing side properly. For what happens at the other end of the carton’s life, recyclability is a separate question with separate answers.
Company performance: EcoVadis rating and CDP
These two are frequently misread, because they assess the organization rather than the product.
EcoVadis scores a company across four themes: environment, labor and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement. The result is a score and a medal tier, benchmarked against other assessed companies. Arkay holds EcoVadis Platinum, most recently rated March 2026, which places it in the top 1% of more than 1.6 million companies screened across 175+ countries and 200 industries.
That is a meaningful statement about how the business is run. It is not a statement about any individual carton, and it cannot be used as one. A brand writing packaging copy cannot say “this carton is EcoVadis Platinum”, because cartons are not assessed. The supplier is.
CDP is narrower still. It scores the quality and completeness of climate disclosure. A high CDP score means an organization reports thoroughly, which is genuinely useful when comparing suppliers, but it measures transparency rather than outcome. Arkay submitted the CDP questionnaire for 2024 and holds a B rating on that submission, covering forest stewardship, water security and climate resilience. Worth noting how that reads: a B is a disclosure score, so it says our reporting is substantive, not that our emissions are low. Those are separate claims and we keep them separate.
If a retailer or an internal team is asking for evidence, the practical step is finding out which of the two they want. They are often requested interchangeably and they answer different questions. Our sustainability report sets out where Arkay stands, and sustainable procurement covers the buyer’s side of these conversations.
The one that is not an environmental standard
BRCGS packaging certification is a safety standard. It covers manufacturing hygiene, process control, traceability and product safety. If your carton contacts food, a supplement, or a personal care product, it matters considerably.
It is not an environmental credential, and it turns up in the sustainability sections of supplier websites more often than it should.
Arkay holds BRCGS packaging safety certification at an AA+ grade, the highest the scheme awards, which is precisely why saying this costs nothing. A supplier listing a safety standard as environmental evidence is either being careless or hoping the reader will not check. Either is worth a question. The same care applies to how quality assurance claims are described.
Certifications by material type
The marks a buyer meets depend on what the packaging is made of, which is why a list that mixes them reads as longer than it is. Grouped by the material question each answers:
Two things follow from the table that matter more than the names.
The lanes are not interchangeable. A compostable certification says nothing about sourcing, and a fiber-sourcing certification says nothing about compostability. A supplier holding one is not weaker than a supplier holding the other; they are answering different questions about different materials.
A folding carton lives in the paper and fiber lane. Arkay’s marks sit there, because that is the material. Compostable certifications belong to films, liners and foodservice items; recycled-content certifications apply where recovered fiber is specified. If a brief asks a carton manufacturer for a compostability certification, the useful reply is not a yes or a no but a question about which material the requirement is really aimed at.
How to read a supplier’s certification list
Four questions, and they work in any order.
- Which certification covers the part of the process I am asking about? Sourcing, manufacturing, company management, disclosure, and end of life are five different questions with different answers.
- Is it current, and who issued it? Certifications lapse. The issuing body should be named, and the date should be available on request.
- Is a company-level rating being presented as a product claim? EcoVadis and CDP assess the organization. If they appear as evidence about a carton, the claim has drifted.
- What is not covered by anything on this list? The most useful question, and the one nobody volunteers.
None of these are aggressive. A supplier who works to these standards will answer them readily, and a supplier who cannot is telling you something.
What certifications are actually for
A certification is evidence, not a conclusion. It narrows what you have to take on trust, which is valuable and limited at the same time.
The honest version of a sustainability position is specific: this paperboard is FSC certified, this facility is carbon neutral in its operations, this company is rated at this tier by this assessor. Those statements are defensible and checkable. “Sustainable packaging” is neither, which is why we do not use it about our own work.
For the materials and formats side of the conversation, sustainable packaging solutions covers what is available. For work in a specific category, our cosmetics packaging capabilities are a reasonable starting point.
Get a straight answer on what our certifications cover
Every certification on this page covers one slice of a long process, and the gap between what a mark certifies and what a reader assumes is where claims go wrong. Read the right-hand column of the table before you write packaging copy.
Arkay is a useful supplier to have this conversation with because our own list is specific and we describe its edges: FSC, SFI and PEFC chain of custody on fiber, BRCGS at AA+ for packaging safety, EcoVadis Platinum at company level, a CDP rating on disclosure, and CarbonNeutral certification on operations. Each answers one question, and we will tell you which.
Two ways in. If you are assembling evidence for a retailer or an internal team, the scope and dates sit in our sustainability report. If you have a specific requirement and need to know whether it is covered, send it to us and you will get a yes, a no, or the name of the mark that actually answers it. A clear no is worth more than a vague yes, and it is faster.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best sustainability certification?
There is no single best one, and a supplier who names one is usually describing what they hold rather than what you need. These certifications answer different questions. FSC, SFI and PEFC certify where fiber came from. EcoVadis rates how a company manages environmental and social performance. CDP scores climate disclosure. BRCGS covers product safety rather than environmental performance at all. The useful question is not which certification is best, it is which one covers the part of the process you are being asked about.
Which ESG certificate is best?
For packaging suppliers, EcoVadis and CDP are the two most commonly requested, and they measure different things. EcoVadis assesses and scores a company’s management of environment, labor and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement, and awards a medal tier. CDP scores the quality and completeness of climate disclosure, which means a strong CDP score indicates good reporting rather than good performance. If a retailer or an internal ESG team is asking for evidence, check which of the two they actually want, because they are not interchangeable.
What is UN certification for packaging?
UN certification is not a sustainability certification, and it is worth clearing up because the terms get conflated. UN certification covers packaging used to transport dangerous goods: drums, jerricans, boxes and containers that carry hazardous materials, tested to defined drop, stack and pressure standards. It applies to transport safety, not environmental performance, and it does not apply to retail folding cartons. If someone asks whether your carton is UN certified, they are almost certainly asking about a different product category.
Is BRCGS a sustainability certification?
No. BRCGS packaging certification covers manufacturing hygiene, process control and product safety, which matters a great deal if your carton contacts food or a consumer product, but it is not an environmental standard. It appears in sustainability sections of supplier websites more often than it should. Arkay holds BRCGS packaging safety certification and describes it as what it is: a safety credential. If a supplier lists it as evidence of environmental performance, that is a reasonable thing to question.
Can I say my packaging is sustainable if my supplier is FSC certified?
No, and this is the most common category error in packaging claims. FSC certifies that fiber came from responsibly managed forests and can be traced through the chain of custody. It says nothing about the energy used to print the carton, whether the coating affects recyclability, how the waste was handled, or what happens at end of life. A supported claim would be specific: that the paperboard is FSC certified. Extending that into a claim about the packaging as a whole is the step that turns accurate evidence into a misleading statement.
