Legally sound certification:
Free Claim CheckTRUSTMARK USAGE
Anyone displaying a flustix trustmark is making a verified claim about a product. This page sets out who may use a trustmark, how it is displayed and which claims may accompany it.
For licensees, agencies, packaging development and prepress
PLEASE NOTE
Contractual use of a flustix trustmark is governed by the rules on this page. They apply together with the certification scheme of the respective trustmark and the licence agreement; where they conflict, the certification scheme prevails. The trustmark itself must not be altered graphically. In case of doubt, it is not your own reading that decides but a short question to us. Since 27 September 2026 a wrongly placed mark is an environmental claim like any other, and it falls back on the licensee.
WHO MAY DISPLAY A TRUSTMARK
A product is not certified merely because it contains certified material. The trustmark may be displayed by whoever holds a valid entitlement. Three cases occur.
Whoever had the product, packaging or semi-finished item certified displays the trustmark on the basis of their own certificate and licence agreement. The licence number on the trustmark is theirs.
Whoever takes over an already certified product unchanged from a supplier may apply for their own sub-licence on the basis of that supplier's certificate and licence. It applies only to the identical, unchanged product taken over. Without an own sub-licence the trustmark must not be displayed.
Resellers, too, need a valid licence for every use of the trustmark and every claim made in the market. Reduced self-monitoring does not replace it and creates no entitlement of its own.
Which case applies is set out in the certification scheme of the respective trustmark. Every valid certificate can be looked up by its licence number in the public certificate database. That is where retailers and authorities check whether a claim is covered.
THE TRUSTMARK
Every trustmark exists in two versions, with and without the sidebar, and the rule is unambiguous. On the product, on the packaging and in every concrete application, only the version with the sidebar applies. Without a licence number a claim cannot be looked up, and without that it is not evidence. The version without the sidebar is meant for general presentation, for instance where we show the trustmark portfolio on our own pages. It has no place on a product.
THE SEVEN VERSIONS
Seven trustmarks, five certification schemes. Which one applies is decided by the certified subject, not by the design. A trustmark may only be used for the claim covered by the respective certification. What matters is the certified scope, not the place where the trustmark is applied. A total product trustmark requires that both the product and the packaging have been verified accordingly. Which trustmark a certificate covers is stated in the certificate. In case of doubt the certificate governs, not the assumption.
Plastic-FreeProduct Content Microplastic-Free
Circular EconomyRecycled
Circular EconomyRecyclable
PFAS-FreePFAS-Free
Less PlasticsProduct
Less PlasticsPackaging
Less PlasticsTotal Product
APPLICATION
A trustmark must be shown in full and remain legible, including the trustmark name and the licence number. In print the minimum width is 15 mm. On screen it is 100 pixels of display width; for high-resolution devices the file is prepared at twice that size, so at least 200 pixels wide. On screen the SVG version is preferable anyway, as it stays sharp at any size. On very small packaging the trustmark is not reduced further but moved elsewhere. An illegible trustmark proves nothing.
APPLICATION
A clear space of 25 per cent of the applied trustmark width is kept free all around. At a width of 20 mm that is 5 mm to the nearest design element. No text, no image and no other mark sits in this area. The clear space prevents the trustmark from reading as part of someone else's claim.
25 % of the trustmark width
Enough contrastEnough contrastNot enough contrastNot enough contrastAPPLICATION
On coloured ground the trustmark must remain legible. On dark areas, on photographs and on colours close to the trustmark's own tone it disappears. In case of doubt a contrast checker helps, or the black-and-white version is used.
APPLICATION
Where the trustmark is placed at the edge, it must not be laid into the trimmed area with its own proportions. The bleed required is added to the surface, not to the trustmark.
MPF-BLUEPlastic-Free · Product Content Microplastic-Free
CIRCULAR-MAGENTACircular Economy · Recycled
CIRCULAR-MAGENTACircular Economy · Recyclable
PFAS-PURPLEPFAS-Free · PFAS-Free
LP-BLUELess Plastics · Product
LP-GREENLess Plastics · Packaging
flustix TEALLess Plastics · Total Product
COLOURS
Every trustmark has its own tone, and the tone says which trustmark it is before a word is read. Only the original colours apply, plus the black-and-white version and the negative version. Which value for what. For anything appearing on a screen, the HEX or RGB value applies: website, online shop, presentation, social media. For anything printed, the CMYK value applies, and where a spot colour is possible, the Pantone value. An RGB value in a print file turns dull when converted, and on a trustmark that shows immediately. The CMYK values refer to the ICC profile PSO Coated v3. Anyone working in a different colour space, for instance North American SWOP or uncoated stock, converts from there and matches against the Pantone value, not against the CMYK figures. Every colour has a name. It sits below the swatch and is the clearer reference in a request than “the green one”.
COLOURS
Every trustmark also exists in black and white and as a negative version. They are meant for cases where colour is not printed or the ground does not allow it, not as a design alternative. The black of the special versions is a pure black. It is not the same as flustix Black, the dark green of the sidebar. The two are regularly confused in prepress, and the result is either a sidebar that reads too hard or a trustmark that comes out grey in black-and-white print.
flustix BLACK
Schwarz
Weiß
FILES
Every trustmark is supplied in two colour spaces, and within each as vector and as pixel. The choice is not a matter of taste: a pixel image in a print file goes soft, a CMYK image on a website goes flat. Vector before pixel wherever possible. A vector file stays sharp at any size, from a label to a trade fair banner, and it can be processed cleanly in prepress. Pixel files are meant for environments that do not support other formats, such as an online shop system or a presentation template. We supply the file formats you need on request. Files are not extracted from a PDF or copied from the web, because doing so can lose the licence number or carry the wrong version.
Vector
Pixel
Vector
THE CLAIM ALONGSIDE
The trustmark carries the verified value itself. The text beside it may repeat and explain that value, but not widen it.
If the packaging is certified, the text speaks of the packaging and not of the product. If a component is certified, the claim stays clearly limited to that component.
The percentage in the text is the same as on the trustmark. A rounded, rounded-up or omitted value is a different claim from the one that was verified.
Phrases such as environmentally friendly, sustainable or climate neutral are not a permissible paraphrase of a flustix trustmark. Since 27 September 2026 they are inadmissible without evidence of their own, and the trustmark does not cover them.
The binding wording for each trustmark is set out in its certification scheme and governs there.
Changing proportions, squeezing or stretching.
Own colours, gradients or transparency.
The trustmark stands upright, including on rotated surfaces.
Leaving out parts, the sidebar included.
Text, graphics or other marks on it or in its clear space.
Own versions, own typeface, own arrangement.
NOT PERMITTED
The following are never permitted, not in reduced views, not on trade fair stands and not on social media. The reason is not taste. A trustmark is a registered mark, and it works only as long as it looks the same everywhere. Altering it removes its recognisability and with it its purpose, and it breaches the licence agreement at the same time. In case of doubt: a trustmark is placed, not edited.
END OF THE LICENCE
When a licence expires or is withdrawn, the entitlement to use the trustmark ends. From that day new promotional material, websites, data sheets and print data must no longer carry it. At the same time the certificate disappears from the public database. A claim that can no longer be looked up there is an unsubstantiated environmental claim. Where a licence expires regularly or is not renewed, products that were manufactured and lawfully labelled with the flustix trustmark before the licence expired may still be sold off for a period of six months. After the licence has expired, no new products may be manufactured or labelled with the flustix trustmark. Goods lawfully delivered to retailers within that period may continue to be distributed until existing stock is sold off. Where a licence is suspended or withdrawn because of breaches or because conformity is no longer given, this sell-off period does not apply automatically. In that case the certification body, in consultation with the scheme owner flustix, determines the necessary measures and any deadlines on a case by case basis.
FILES AND QUESTIONS
Trustmark files are supplied by flustix only, carrying your own licence number and in the formats needed for print and screen. Rebuilt versions, copies found online or extracted from a PDF are not permitted: they carry the wrong number or none at all.
NO LICENCE YET
This page governs usage. Anyone without a certificate starts one step earlier: with the verification that establishes the value in the first place.
