Certification at a Glance
HORTICERT certifies sustainable peat substitutes for hobby and professional substrates.
This page summarises who can be certified and what a HORTICERT certification implies.
CERTIFICAtion AT A GLANCE
Key Facts
- HORTICERT certifies all companies along the supply chain of various peat substitutes. In the long term, HORTICERT will cover all volume-building peat substitutes available on the market.
- For each geographical site of a company, one certificate is issued, which certifies both the company and a partial or total quantity of the raw materials, substrate components or substrates produced and is valid for one year.
- To use the HORTICERT logo on a product, companies must certify at least 25% of these product’s materials by applying the mass balance approach.
- In addition, these products must contain a maximum of 30% (hobby substrates) or 70% (professional substrates) peat.
WHO Gets Certified?
HORTICERT certification ensures the compliance of sustainability requirements across the entire supply chain of various peat substitutes. Any company involved in the supply chain, from raw material extraction to final substrate production, represents a potential system user of the HORTICERT certification system.
As supply chains often involve many different entities, HORTICERT developed a digital solution for tracing supply chains. The International Product Tracing (IPT) system HORTI-TRACE facilitates the seamless tracking of goods across international supply chains and enables the transfer of product-related sustainability data and GHG emission values. More information on HORTI-TRACE will soon be available on our website.
WHAT Gets Certified?
HORTICERT certifies sustainable peat substitutes for hobby and professional substrate mixes. To attain a HORTICERT certification, both the company as well as its peat substitutes must be certified every year. However, it is not mandatory to certify the entire quantity of produced peat substitutes.
Certified companies have the possibility to decide whether they want to certify the entire quantity of raw materials, substrate components, or substrates produced, or only a partial quantity. If only a partial quantity is certified, the mass balancing approach can be used. This allows companies to mix certified and non-certified materials during transport, storage and production. However, no more goods than were actually certified may be declared as sustainable. For example, a growing media mixing plant therefore only has to ensure that it has enough certified materials available for the substrate mix, which is to be declared as HORTICERT-certified according to the mass balance.
Currently, wood fiber, bark humus, green waste compost and coco-based peat substitutes can be certified under HORTICERT. In the long term, HORTICERT will be applicable for all volume-forming peat substitutes (≥ 5 vol%) available on the market.
What Does a HORTICERT Certification Cost?
The HORTICERT fee structure comprises two main types of fees – a certification fee plus a quantity-dependent fee. The fees are calculated based on the company’s turnover and the quantity of material to be certified under HORTICERT.
Certification Fees: The certification fee is due per issued certificate, regardless of the number of scopes covered by the certification. This fee is calculated based on the total annual turnover (in EUR) of the registered legal entity, including both certified and non-certified materials. The certification body invoices the fee after the certificate has been issued.
Quantity-Dependent Fee: The quantity-dependent fee is to be paid for the amount of outgoing certified material declared by the System User as sustainable according to HORTICERT. The fee is based on the outgoing material and will be invoiced by HORTICERT at the end of a certification period.
Additional Costs apply for the audit conducted by an independent certification body. Audit costs are managed separately from HORTICERT and vary by provider.
For more information on company-specific fees, feel free to reach out to us through our contact form.
Further Criteria
A substrate mix needs to incorporate at least 25% HORTICERT-certified components to display the HORTICERT Logos and Claims. As HORTICERT exclusively certifies peat substitutes and not peat itself, only 100% peat-free substrates can obtain a 100% HORTICERT certification.
In addition, substrate mixes for the hobby sector may not contain more than 30% peat, while professional substrates are limited to a maximum of 70% peat. Depending on political objectives and market developments, HORTICERT reserves the right to further reduce the maximum peat content in the future.