You might be a Declare manufacturer, or you might not, but you've come to 3E Exchange with the goal of creating a Declare label. Declare Labels make a powerful statement on visibility and transparency for your consumers, and are easily configured, generated, and submitted to the International Living Futures Institute (ILFI) from your existing products in 3E Exchange. Luckily, 3E Exchange has a guided workflow specifically designed to walk you through the process of creating a Declare Label!

Step 1: Start the Declare Label Workflow

Step 2: Import a New Product, or Select an Existing Product from your Library

Step 3: Review BOM

Step 4: Complete Manufacturer Information and Declare-Specific Fields

Step 5: Prepare your Declare Label

Step 6: Submit your Declare Label

You will start by selecting the button at the top of your screen that says "Submit Declare Label". This will trigger the step-by-step workflow built into 3E Exchange.

If you are brand new to 3E Exchange, you might not have any data in your account. If you're a seasoned 3E Exchange user, you will certainly have data in your account. This workflow accommodates every type of user.

Import a New Product

If you're new to 3E Exchange, select "Import new Product". Follow the workflow steps to complete the import.

For more information on importing, read our general data import summary. We also have a Declare Data Template for you to enter your data into and then import the Declare-specific fields. If you have any questions, use the chat button on the bottom right-hand side of the screen to reach out to our team.

Select single existing Product in Library

If you already have a product imported into 3E Exchange and would like to use that to create your Declare Label, click " Select single existing Product in Library" to start the Declare workflow.

Select the Product you'd like to use to create your Declare Label from your list in the "Select Product/Materials" step.

Once you've either imported your data OR selected an existing product, you will find yourself on the "Review BOM" Step of the workflow.

In this step, you will want to make sure your BOM is fulfilling the Declare requirements. This means you will need to have your Chemical Registry Numbers and Product % by Weight completed, accounting for 99 or 100 percent of the product (100 percent must be disclosed if your product contains any Red List substances).

Once you've confirmed that your BOM is correct and complete, select the arrow to move on to the next step in the workflow.

If you need to change your Reporting Options for your Declare Label (i.e. obscure ranges, change the column to reference for material names, etc.) visit this help article that walks through our new and improved Setting page: 3E Exchange System-Wide Settings.

In the "General Info" and "Edit Declare Fields" page, you will need to fill out the information about your company as well as specific required fields for Declare.

On the "General Info" page, Manufacturer Name and Description are required. It is recommended that you fill out the other information on this page to the best of your ability.

On the "Edit Declare Fields" page, there are more required fields specifically designed and chosen by the Declare team at ILFI. All required fields will have a "required" indication next to them. Any fields that still need to be filled out will have a red star next to them to help you identify missing information.

The product name input in this section will be the product name as appears on the final Declare label, so it's important to check that it is correct.

You will not be able to move on to the next step until the required field are filled out.

Once you've completed this step, click the next button to move forward.

You will be asked to choose between two types of Declare Labels: Just Substances OR Materials and Substances.

Here is an example BOM that we will use to demonstrate the two types of Declare Labels:

Declare Label (Just Substances)
This label looks at the rows in your BOM that are substances and then create the ingredients list based on those. It will not divide the ingredient up into their various components.

Declare Label (Materials and Substances)
This label will look at the materials and substances in your BOM and list the ingredients in the Declare label based on which substance they are in. In order for this label type to work correctly, it is important to have weight or % by weight information at the component levels. For example, this simple BOM contains all the weight % information in the product % by weight column, including information for the components.
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Choose which type of Declare Label works best for you and then select "Ok" to move on.

You will be pushed to the "Preview" step. Here you review the Declare Label for for accuracy, or make edits for the substances on the bottom of the page.

Ingredients
The list of ingredients is created based on your product's substances. Declare Labels have a reporting threshold of 100 ppm, so a product with less than 0.01% total Product % by Weight will be omitted.

When you set up your Material & Substance label, you will need to specify which 3E Exchange BOM column to pull the material name from. It defaults to pull the part name and most users will not need to change this. If you wish to pull the name from a different column (e.g. a custom reporting column to hide internal part names) then you can configure that under Settings > App Settings > Material Selection, then Choose which columns(s) to use for Material Names.

Proprietary Ingredients
Substances which you or your suppliers designate as proprietary in 3E Exchange will appear as "Undisclosed" on your Declare Label. If the substance is included in the Red or Orange lists, they will still have the corresponding hazard color.

Modifications for Exceptions and Omissions of Ingredients
Occasionally it is necessary to document a substance which does not have a corresponding CASRN in 3E Exchange, document an exception, or to omit an ingredient.

You can modify ingredient names, exceptions, or omissions within the Declare Template Preview at the bottom of the page:

Please note that modifications that you make to chemical names will only be visible in Declare labels. To change the chemical names everywhere the chemical is used, use our custom chemical name manager to keep things consistent throughout your data.

Material and Substance % on the Declare label

You can choose to have the material and substance % on your Declare label to be specific (e.g. 1.27%) or to be rounded to ranges (e.g. 1 - 1.5%). You can choose either reporting option for your Declare label in the Obscure Reporting Percentages to Ranges section within your 3E Exchange account.

Go to Settings > Apps Settings > scroll down to Obscure Reporting Percentages to Ranges. Here, if you want the material and substance % on the Declare label to be specific, select Off in the dropdrown. If you want the % to be rounded in ranges, select Standard Rounding.

Once you have confirmed all of the information for your Declare Label - congratulations - you should be ready to submit! Select the next button to start the submission workflow. All the steps after that for submission, review, approval, and publishing are available in our next article following the button below.

Choosing to submit your data will send a summary of your Declare Label to the ILFI for review, including your name and email address registered in 3E Exchange. Data you have marked as proprietary will remain Undisclosed in this submission.

The Declare team at ILFI will review your submission and will be in contact with you if there are any questions or concerns about the information provided.

If you have questions about the Declare label process and information, contact declare.support@living-future.org. If you have questions about using 3E Exchange, reach out in chat in the bottom right-hand corner or email support@3eco.com.