As demand for recycled content continues to grow, consumer brands face increasing pressure to ensure that materials sourced from advanced recycling technologies are produced responsibly and transparently.
To help address this need, SCS Global Services published its Certification Standard for Responsible Chemical Recycling. Developed from guidelines established through a multi-stakeholder process convened by the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network, now known as Circle, the voluntary standard provides independent verification of advanced recycling operations across a range of environmental, social and operational criteria.
The standard introduces three certification tiers that evaluate areas including feedstock sourcing, chain of custody, mass balance accounting, greenhouse gas emissions, waste and water management, and community engagement.
The following Q&A, created by the Recycling Science Council explores the development of the standards, what it means for advanced recyclers and consumer brands, and how third-party certification can support greater transparency and accountability.
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SCS-004 is a certification framework that improves transparency and builds confidence in materials sourced from advanced recycling operations. This standard allows advanced recyclers to assess and verify for their customers the environmental and social performance of their chemical recycling operations, while improving transparency across processes, materials, and impacts.
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Even with greater source and use reduction, mechanical recycling alone cannot handle the scale or complexity of plastic in our waste stream. As a result, far too much plastic is either landfilled, incinerated or ends up in the environment. Chemical recycling can complement mechanical recycling, help achieve greater material recovery, improve circularity and further decouple manufacturing from virgin resources. Chemical recycling technologies are designed to process harder-to-recycle materials such as films, flexible packaging, expanded polystyrene foam, multilayered packaging, end-of-life tires and waste textiles.
At the same time, there are questions about chemical recycling operations, including energy intensity and potential environmental impacts associated with complex chemical processes. This makes transparency, accountability, and credible oversight especially important.
Until now, stakeholders have lacked an independent mechanism to verify whether chemical recyclers are accurately measuring, monitoring, and reporting their environmental and social impacts. SCS-004 addresses this gap by providing a rigorous, independently verified framework that enables chemical recyclers to demonstrate that their recycling operations meet clear environmental, social, and operational transparency standards.
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SCS-004 helps give brands, regulators, and consumers confidence that chemical recyclers are operating following established principles and guidelines while supporting the transition to a more circular economy.
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This work was initiated by CIRCLE (formerly the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network), a neutral organization that facilitated the development of a white paper with industry, brands, and society.
Building on that foundation, stakeholders across the chemical industry, including both large and small companies, chose to advance the effort by transforming the white paper into a formal, auditable standard. SCS Standards was then engaged to support the standard development process.
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SCS Standards is an independent, ANSI-accredited science-based standards development organization. SCS Standards facilitated the development of SCS-004 through a multi-stakeholder process. This included engagement with civil society organizations and brands, as well as a public comment period to help ensure diverse perspectives were reflected in the standard. Pilot audits were also conducted to validate the practicality and auditability of the requirements in real-world applications.
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Chemical recycling, also referred to as advanced or molecular recycling, is a term used to describe technologies that convert waste streams, including organics, plastics, and other engineered products, back into basic chemical building blocks or raw materials, which can then be used to make new, virgin-like plastics and other products.
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Chemical recycling complements mechanical recycling and other recycling technologies in supporting a circular economy by increasing the volume of material diverted from landfill, incineration, and environmental pollution. Consistent with the Waste Hierarchy, the leading decision-making framework in the waste management sector, waste reduction and reuse should remain the highest priorities, followed by recycling solutions.
When sourcing feedstock, priority should be given to hard-to-recycle materials that are typically incompatible with currently established collection, sortation, and recycling processes.
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SCS-004 applies globally to organizations conducting advanced, chemical, or molecular recycling, including facilities processing plastics, textiles, or other polymers, that wish to demonstrate their commitment to implementing responsible recycling practices.
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Certification is voluntary and enables organizations to demonstrate responsible practices while building credibility and trust with stakeholders.
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SCS-004 includes advanced, chemical, and molecular recycling technologies such as:
pyrolysis
depolymerization
solvolysis
methanolysis
gasification
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Operations and transparency: Feedstock sourcing, chain of custody
Environmental impacts: Energy intensity, operational emissions, direct (Scope 1) emissions from the process and indirect (Scope 2) emissions from related activities such as power usage and transportation, water and waste management
Social impacts, equity and human rights: Community engagement and development, occupational health and safety
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Core: Foundational management, permitting, chain-of-custody, environmental, and social reporting requirements
Plus: Demonstrated improvement against established baselines
Trailblazer: Recognition for leading performance in specific categories
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The standard requires disclosure of the chain-of-custody model—identity preserved, segregation, controlled blending, or mass balance. When mass balance is used, the attribution approach must also be disclosed.
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Certification involves a third-party audit, and annual audits are required to maintain certification.
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SCS-004 certifies that an advanced, chemical, or molecular recycling operation conforms to specified environmental, social, chain-of-custody, and transparency requirements. It does not, by itself, establish that every downstream product contains a particular amount of recycled content, that a technology is environmentally preferable in every application, or that certification replaces applicable regulatory requirements. Product-specific recycled-content or environmental claims may require separate verification.
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SCS--004 complements rather than replaces recycled-content certification, ISO-based life-cycle assessment, ISCC PLUS, regulatory permits, and other applicable requirements.