Product certification support for manufacturers

There's no single answer, and we'd be cautious of anyone who gives you one. The timeline depends on how many products you're certifying, how much documentation already exists, how complex your supply chain is, and how quickly your team can respond to information requests. What we can tell you is that going in prepared, with a proper gap analysis done first. This makes the whole process significantly faster and smoother. 

GECA covers 27 product and service types including flooring, furniture, adhesives, paints and coatings, cleaning products, textiles and more. Each category has its own standard. We'll confirm early on whether your product has an active GECA standard and what that means for your application. 

GECA is Australia's only Type I ecolabel certified to ISO 14024, which means it meets the independent, third-party verification requirements that rating tools like Green Star and ISC require. Products with GECA certification earn credits in these systems, which is a significant commercial advantage for manufacturers selling into construction and fitout projects 

C2C Certified® evaluates products across five categories: material health (what's in the product and whether it's safe), material reutilisation (how the product can be recovered at end of life), clean energy and carbon management, water stewardship, and social fairness. Each category is scored separately, and the overall certification level (Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum) is set by the lowest-scoring category. 

Yes. C2C Certified® is a global standard administered by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, and Australian manufacturers can pursue it regardless of where their products are sold. It's particularly valuable for manufacturers exporting to Europe or North America, where circular economy credentials are increasingly expected. 

Yes, there is some overlap. Both certifications consider environmental and social impacts, including material choices, restricted substances, responsible production and circular economy principles. However, GECA is generally more focused on Australian ecolabel and procurement recognition, while Cradle to Cradle places greater emphasis on material health, circularity and continuous product improvement. 

 Declare is a product transparency label administered by the International Living Future Institute. It discloses every ingredient in a product, where it was manufactured, and how long the product is expected to last. It doesn't judge whether those ingredients are good or bad, it simply makes the information available. That transparency is what makes it valuable to architects, specifiers and sustainability-conscious procurement teams. 

Declare is required for products used on Living Building Challenge projects, and it's becoming a standard request on commercial interiors, healthcare and education projects where procurement teams need to demonstrate material transparency. Even outside formal requirements, having a Declare label signals to specifiers that you have nothing to hide, which is increasingly a differentiator. 

The Living Future Institute maintains a Red List of chemicals considered most harmful to human health and the environment. A Declare label shows whether a product contains any Red List ingredients. Products that are Red List Free — meaning they contain none of those chemicals — carry significant weight on Living Building Challenge and other high-performance projects. We can help you understand where your products sit before you apply. 

 You can apply to any of these certifications directly and understanding the process yourself is always worthwhile. What we provide is speed, accuracy and confidence. Manufacturers who work with us avoid the back-and-forth that comes from incomplete submissions, and they go into the process knowing exactly what's expected before the assessment starts.