The two standards are not two grades of the same thing

Buyers routinely ask for “EN 13432 or EN 17427, whichever you have”, as though they were an industrial tier and a home tier of one scheme. They are different standards with different subjects.

EN 13432:2000 is titled “Packaging. Requirements for packaging recoverable through composting and biodegradation. Test scheme and evaluation criteria for the final acceptance of packaging”. Its subject is packaging, and its composting conditions are industrial. TÜV Austria’s OK compost INDUSTRIAL scheme certifies against it.

EN 17427:2022 is titled “Packaging. Requirements and test scheme for carrier bags suitable for treatment in well-managed home composting installations”. Its subject is carrier bags. Not tableware, not packaging generally, carrier bags.

That matters for anyone specifying leaf, pulp or board tableware. There is no European standard written for home compostability of a plate. Home compostability claims on tableware rest on certification scheme requirements rather than on a European standard covering the product type. TÜV Austria states that its OK compost HOME programme is not based on a specific standard, and that the programme requirements defined in 2003 have since served as the basis for drafting several standards.

The honest reading for a tableware buyer is that an industrial compostability certificate against EN 13432 is a real and meaningful document, and a home compostability mark on tableware is a scheme certificate rather than conformity with a product-specific European standard. Both can be genuine. They prove different things and you should ask for them in different words.

A certificate attaches to a product, not to a material

This is where most supplier claims fall apart under inspection.

TÜV Austria’s OK compost INDUSTRIAL scheme certifies products and materials, not companies, and requires that all components, inks and additives meet the biodegradability requirements for the final product to be certified. The Seedling label is certified against EN 13432 and EN 14995 and is issued by TÜV Austria Belgium and DIN CERTCO, with the logo and certificate number printed on the pack.

Follow the logic through and three common claims stop working.

“Areca leaf is compostable, so our plates are certified.” A material property is not a certificate. The certificate covers a tested article.

“We have a certificate for our 10 inch plate, so the 12 inch is covered.” Not unless the certificate says so. Ask for the product reference on the certificate and compare it to the SKU you are buying.

“Our factory is certified.” Factories are not certified under these schemes. An ISO 22000:2018 or ISO 9001:2015 certificate covers a management system and is a different document with a different purpose. Foliware India LLP holds both, and neither is a compostability certificate.

If the printed pack will carry a mark, the licence and the certificate have to cover the exact article in the pack. A sustainability label displayed without a certification scheme behind it is a blacklisted practice under the consumer protection rules that apply from 27 September 2026, set out in the guide to what you may and may not say about green claims in the EU.

The five fields to check on the certificate itself

Ask for the certificate as a PDF, not a logo in a brochure. Then check five things in this order, because each one fails more often than the one after it.

A sixth check is worth the five minutes it takes: verify the certificate number against the issuing body’s own register rather than trusting the PDF. Certificates are among the easiest documents to alter, and the register is the control. The wider question of verifying what an Indian supplier tells you is covered in the guide to how to verify an areca leaf plate exporter before you send money.

What PPWR did to the value of an existing certificate

This is new and most buyers have not caught up with it.

Regulation (EU) 2025/40, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, sets compostability requirements in Article 9. Article 9(1) requires certain named formats to be industrially compostable by 12 February 2028: permeable tea, coffee and other beverage bags, soft after-use system single-serve units, and very lightweight and lightweight plastic carrier bags. Plates are not on that list. Article 9(2) lets a Member State require additional packaging formats to be compostable where it has appropriate collection infrastructure.

The important part for certificate holders is what the Commission guidance says about standards. It states that the existing standard EN 13432 on industrial composting can be used as guidance until the new standard is adopted, and that existing certifications do not create a presumption of conformity with the compostability requirement. The Commission requested harmonised standards, and presumption of conformity will follow only once new standards are officially listed.

So an EN 13432 certificate in September 2026 is evidence, and useful evidence. It is not a legal presumption of conformity under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. Anyone selling you a certificate as though it closes a PPWR question is overselling it. The wider picture of which PPWR duties bite now and which are dated later is in the analysis of what changed for imported foodservice packaging on 12 August 2026.

The thing a certificate cannot tell you at all

A compostability certificate is a laboratory and scheme conclusion about how an article behaves under defined conditions. It says nothing about whether the waste system at your customer’s site will accept the article.

That gap is visible in the Regulation itself. Article 9(2) conditions a Member State’s power to mandate compostability on having appropriate collection infrastructure, and the Commission guidance says home composting should only be considered in the context of specific local conditions and under the supervision of the relevant authorities. Composting infrastructure and acceptance rules are local, and many organic waste streams are specified for food waste rather than for serviceware.

The practical consequence for a buyer in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden or Ireland is that the end-of-life story you print should match what the operator’s waste contractor will actually do, and only the waste contractor can tell you that. Ask the site’s contractor before you print a disposal instruction, and confirm the position with the local competent authority where the answer has legal consequences.

Here is the unhelpful version, stated plainly. If your customer’s site sends everything to energy recovery, a compostability certificate buys them nothing operationally, and a cheaper uncertified product with the same material story may serve them better. If your customer runs a closed-loop event with a dedicated organic stream, certification is worth paying for and worth specifying tightly. Sell the certificate to the second buyer and be honest with the first. Nordic public buyers tend to ask exactly this question in tender, which is why their criteria are a good template even outside public procurement, as set out in the guide to green public procurement criteria for catering disposables in the Nordics.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

• Green claims in the EU from September 2026: what you may and may not say
• PPWR is in force: what changed for imported foodservice packaging
• Areca leaf plate exporters in India: how to verify one before you send money
• Green public procurement criteria for catering disposables in the Nordics

References