Amazon's Sustainability Certification: The Climate Pledge Friendly Badge
Everything worth knowing about the Climate Pledge Friendly Badge has been compactly summarized in this blog post. The certification for sustainable products was initiated by Amazon and is intended to make it easier for consumers to identify sustainable products. It explains what the certification is about, why the certification is important, which products can be certified and how you can have your own products certified.
What is the Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly (CPF) Certification?
The Climate Pledge Friendly Badge is a certification for sustainable products that was introduced by Amazon in 2019. The certification marks sustainable products on the Amazon product detail page and search results page and is intended to help customers easily and quickly identify them. "The Climate Pledge" is a climate commitment that companies sign to achieve CO2 neutrality by 2040 - 10 years earlier than stipulated in the Paris Agreement. It was initiated in September 2019 by Amazon and the organization Global Optimism. Climate Pledge Friendly is an initiative inspired by this commitment and is intended to make it easier for customers to identify and purchase sustainable products with certifications such as FairTrade or Bioland, while encouraging sales partners to focus more strongly on sustainability.
The Climate Pledge Friendly seal is displayed in search results under the shipping cost information and on the product detail page under the title. After clicking on the certification, it shows which third-party certifications the product has.
Which products can be certified?
Basically, products from all product categories can be certified if they have a third-party seal. For a product to receive the sustainability certification, it must have a third-party certificate recognized by Amazon. Amazon has selected a variety of trusted certificates that enable Climate Pledge Friendly certification. However, it should be noted that the products must be certified at the product level. It is not sufficient if only the brand or packaging is certified. In addition, it should be noted that for product sets, it is not sufficient if only one part of the set content is certified. The entire product and all parts contained therein must have a valid certification.
An overview of all approved certificates can be found here.
In addition to the climate-friendly certification, there are two other Amazon certifications: "Compact by Design" and "Pre-owned Certified". Compact by Design certifies products that use less air and water, require less packaging and can be transported more efficiently. With larger quantities, these small differences in product size and weight lead to significantly lower CO2 emissions. "Pre-owned Certified" marks used and refurbished products that have been tested for functionality, cleaned and (if necessary) repaired. The certifications serve to highlight products that meet Amazon's established sustainability standards and contribute to nature protection.
Why is the certification important?
With the "Climate Pledge Friendly" certificate, you can show consumers that your own brand is responsible and sustainable. In addition, the seal is being increasingly highlighted by Amazon and the visibility and relevance of the certification is continuing to increase. Some examples are listed below.
Emphasis on the search results page
On the product search results page, product suggestions are listed with the designation "Highly rated" or the category "Recommendations from our publishing partners". In addition, there is also a "Climate Pledge Friendly" tab there. The included listings are not sponsored ads, but merely suggestions from Amazon for which the seller does not have to pay any fees. Certified products are specifically highlighted by Amazon in this context.
Filter directly for certified products
In addition, in the app and on desktop, similar to Amazon Prime, you can filter for Climate Pledge Friendly certified products with just one click.
CPF suggestion as substitute on the product detail page
It happens that users are presented with an alternative, certified option from a competitor under the "Climate Pledge Friendly Choice" label from Amazon on the product detail page of non-certified products. This is displayed directly under the product information, where sponsored display advertising normally appears. As with the search result suggestions, this is unpaid advertising. The seller has no influence on the display and no costs are incurred.
Your own CPF landing page
There is a dedicated Climate Pledge Friendly landing page where only products with the corresponding seal are listed. This excludes all articles that do not have certification. As a seller, you can miss a sales opportunity if your products are not listed there.
Our tip:
The relevance of the badge should not be underestimated and new reasons for the relevance of the certification are constantly being added. Check whether approved certifications are suitable for your products and the possibilities of obtaining third-party certification. If one of the third-party certifications should already be present at the product level, but your products do not yet have the badge, you should take the opportunity and have your products awarded the Climate Pledge Friendly Badge.
We tested how this works for you!
Case Study - How do I get products certified?
If the product has a valid third-party certificate, Amazon sometimes automatically recognizes the certifications if they are visible on the product images, for example. In this case, automatic certification by Amazon occurs, and the CPF Badge automatically appears on the corresponding product. If this is not the case, the products can also be submitted.
How this works, we show you below:
The 4 steps to your own Climate Pledge Friendly Badge:
1. Download and fill out CPF product template
If the product has a valid third-party certificate, products can be submitted via the product template provided by Amazon. In our test example, 31 products with the third-party certificate "Oeko Tex Standard 100" were submitted.
Sellers can find the product template under:
Seller Central Help > Manage Inventory > Create and Manage Offers > Register Products in Climate Pledge Friendly Program
or via the following link.
Vendors can find the template under:
In Help Pages > Manage Products > Register Products in our Climate Pledge Friendly Program
or via the following link.
2. Fill out product template
First, it should be noted that a template can contain several products as long as they have the same certification. If several products with different certifications are to be submitted, this must be done in separate templates.
In the first worksheet, the type of certification must be selected from the dropdown list and the number of products to be submitted must be specified. In addition, it must be selected that the product is certified at the product level by selecting "Yes". Because the products must, as described earlier, be certified at the product level.
Depending on what information is entered in the first worksheet, the corresponding columns in the second worksheet automatically adjust. Amazon also provides an example here, so it's easy to see how to fill out the cells. Irrelevant columns are grayed out and don't need to be filled out.
The third worksheet serves to mark errors directly when filling out. For example, if an incorrect format was used. This way, these errors are immediately apparent and can be corrected before submission.
If all information has been entered correctly, the document can be submitted.
3. Submit product template
Sellers can then submit the completed template here:
Help > Request Support > Selling on Amazon > Or search for your problem in the menu > Products, Offers or Inventory > Climate Pledge Friendly
or via the following link
Vendors can find the upload area under:
Help > Contact Us > Manage Catalog Data > Climate Pledge Friendly/ Compact by Design > Send Email
or via the following link
A brief description of the task and content including the CPF product template is sufficient to submit the case.
4. Wait for support feedback
A few hours after submission, Amazon responds to the case and informs that Amazon Support needs 5-10 days to review the requirements.
In our case, we received a response including a review report after just one day. This lists the submitted products and marks the certification status as "Valid" or "Invalid". In the example, all 31 submitted products were approved for certification without any problems.
According to Amazon, it takes another 2-4 weeks for the certification to actually appear on the product page. So there's nothing more to do than wait. For all our submitted products, the seal was automatically displayed on the product detail page after 11 days.
Conclusion
The topic of sustainability is high on Amazon's agenda. The endeavor to become a climate-neutral company is being pursued more and more seriously. Sales partners can benefit from this and now give special attention to suitable products. Climate Pledge Friendly could become a basic requirement in the future, similar to the Prime logo, to win customers on Amazon. Therefore, you should act now and have your products certified accordingly and registered in the program. Do you need help registering your products for Climate Pledge Friendly? Feel free to contact us.
