Ocean-bound label stock means more paperwork — not just a material swap
Once you adopt Ocean Action, audits focus less on “how good the material is” and more on whether Sustainability Declarations (SDs) match your lots. What should a printer own — and what should be pushed back upstream?
It looks like a simple label-stock change. What actually grows is the documentation burden. UPM Raflatac’s Ocean Action positions itself as using plastic that could otherwise leak into the ocean, supplied under ISCC PLUS using the mass-balance approach. Where label printers get stuck is rarely print quality. It’s whether they can assemble an audit-ready bundle of evidence that someone can trace.
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Translated from Japanese by AI. The Japanese original is authoritative.
After the label material is approved, the email that lands from procurement tends to read the same. “Please submit the full set of ISCC certificates. We need them tied to the shipment lot.”
When you use Ocean Action, the first thing audits tend to ask is not “what percentage of ocean plastic is in this label.” What they ask is whether the ISCC Sustainability Declaration (SD) issued by the material maker / trading firm and your own internal lot–processing–shipmen…
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Sources
- ISCC PLUS Certification Guideline (PDF) / 2024-02
- UPM Raflatac Ocean Action 製品ページ
- UPM ケーススタディ（2024）Seawake Gin / 2024
- ISCC PLUS guidance SD template (PDF) / 2023-11
- UPM Raflatac Label Life service ページ
- OBP Certification FAQ Guide (PDF) / 2024-09-08
- ISCC Support 記事（mass balance requirements）
- EUR-Lex: Directive (EU) 2024/825 / 2024
- European Commission: Green claims
- ISCC PLUS 203 Traceability and Chain of Custody v1.0 (PDF) / 2025-07
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