ECLASS Release 16.0 – now available!

Expansion of the “material declaration” aspect

With version 16.0, ECLASS sets new standards for transparency and sustainability in product classification. A key highlight is the expansion of the “material declaration” aspect, which is now available for all classification classes—with the exception of service classes.

This extension enables:

• Comprehensive information on critical ingredients in products to better meet regulatory requirements and sustainability goals.
• The declaration of substances or materials subject to labeling requirements in chemical compounds, which are stored in the new block 0173-1#01-AKA421#001..

In addition, the existing structures for Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) and Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) with their 24 impact categories were revalidated in accordance with ISO 14044. A first draft for recycling information was also integrated and will be further developed in Release 17.

With these innovations, ECLASS supports companies in making their products even more transparent and sustainable—a decisive step toward a circular economy and resource conservation.

ECLASS and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

With Release 16.0, ECLASS is once again setting new standards in digital standardization. A key highlight is the comprehensive expansion of classification content: around 23,300 new definitions for classification classes were generated using artificial intelligence (ChatGPT). For maximum transparency, all AI-generated definitions are clearly marked with the note “machine generated by GPT-4o mini” in the “source of definition” attribute. This ensures that the origin of each definition remains traceable at all times.

This innovation builds on the first AI-supported enhancements from Release 15.0, which introduced around 250 new definitions that were reviewed by experts from the ECLASS community. With Release 16.0, this approach is now being implemented on a large scale.

In addition, ECLASS continues to offer machine-readable files (TUF and CUF) for each new release. This makes ECLASS the only standard worldwide that enables automatic migrations—a decisive advantage for companies that rely on efficient data integration.