The world of sustainability and circularity has many hundreds of labels. So many, that it is almost impossible to distinguish the specific accents from one another.

To prevent sustainability and circularity from being limited to ‘a race between labels’, GAIA circulair would like to see that ultimately only the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, with their specific implementations, are embraced as a general framework for sustainability and circularity worldwide, possibly specifically supported by targeted ISO standards, where and when relevant. This way, the reference becomes an independent, global framework.

Although the SDGs have existed for about 10 years and provide a very good structure for planning, tracking, and reporting goals, efforts, and results in the field of sustainability and circularity, we still see that there are many other and also new labels. GAIA circulair observes this with its clients; some of them apply different sustainability labels than the SDGs. To accommodate this group as well, GAIA circulair obviously cannot add the many hundreds of different labels as a guideline for its sustainability activities, but has chosen to be registered with Ecovadis. This international rating organization evaluates companies, including clients of GAIA circulair, in terms of environmental, labor and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement. In addition to applying the SDGs, we continue to work within the frameworks of Ecovadis towards improving our activities and aim to achieve the highest possible score.

In this way, we focus on practical and measurable impact rather than often paper frameworks. By doing what works – smartly handling materials, providing insight into material flows, and structurally contributing to circularity – we make a concrete contribution to the transition to a circular economy.