The Siegel — standard, draft 0.1
Status: development draft. No certificates issued. Not an accredited certification, ISEAL membership claim or blanket environmental endorsement. The intended scope is global; the UK-first shop is the initial implementation. Market-specific legal and product-category annexes are required before any claim in another jurisdiction. Wider use requires scheme approval and tested assurance operations.
The Metatron cube is the proposed mark for The Siegel. It may identify this draft portal, but it must not appear as a product approval until an exact scoped certificate has been issued. Within the shop, sustainability approval requires the applicable The Siegel criteria to pass; this is not a claim that products outside The Siegel are inherently unsustainable.
1. Purpose and scope
The shop and The Siegel apply Metatron World's existing standard: Every claim has evidence. This is the operating principle behind the work, not a new framework introduced by the shop and not a statement that incomplete research has been verified.
Commercial ownership: Metatron Marketing Ltd is developing the shop for profit and develops The Siegel as its own retail admission framework and proposed mark. The same operator has a commercial interest in sales and the scheme. It is not presented as a charity/nonprofit or an independent third-party certification body. Material supplier, sample, affiliate, sponsorship and assessment-funding interests must be disclosed and cannot purchase a favourable decision. The commercial-transparency policy explains these disclosures and protected-evidence boundaries.
The Siegel is being developed as a product admission and traceable assurance standard. It addresses product identity and usefulness, quality, safety, substantiated environmental claims, company accountability and supply-chain traceability. Commercial viability is an internal admission dimension and must not be presented as proof of environmental performance.
A certificate must specify the exact product/model, component or organisation/site, category standard, evidence scope, issuer, decision date, expiry and exclusions. Approval of one component never implies approval of the whole product or company. A QR code opens the current public verification record; essential limitations must also appear beside the mark.
2. Mandatory admission controls
Full evidence at all levels is the intended assurance scope: raw-material origin and extraction; all components and subcomponents; production sites/processes, energy, water, chemicals, waste and labour; each accountable organisation and its governance; packaging, storage and transport; actual chain of custody; product safety, use, durability and repair; returns, reuse and end of life. Scope boundaries and the evidence needed to establish completeness require independent review. A collection of certificates without the links to the actual product or batch does not satisfy this requirement.
- Identify the exact product, full bill of materials/components, packaging and all relevant supply-chain participants, including manufacturing, logistics, fulfilment and returns. An unresolved participant or incomplete mapping blocks approval. Category-specific mapping boundaries must be justified by an independent applicability review, never silently assumed complete.
- Establish the applicable legal/product requirements and a category-specific criteria annex based on authoritative standards and evidence. Record measurable pass conditions, test methods, sampling/lot scope and required reviewer competence before assessment. No active annex means no certificate.
- Bind each material claim to its precise object, source, evidence artifact, method, collection date, limitations and criterion version. Supplier declarations are inputs, not independent assurance.
- Have a competent assessor evaluate the evidence. A different competent decision reviewer approves or rejects the assessment. Both must disclose conflicts; the final decision must be independent of product procurement and sales targets. Fees may not purchase a positive result.
- Release a certificate only when every mandatory criterion, participant and component within the declared scope passes. Missing, conflicting, expired or revoked evidence blocks admission; scores cannot compensate for a mandatory failure.
- Monitor relevant changes, complaints and evidence expiry. Quarantine affected offers when approval lapses; investigate upstream impact across all dependent products. Restore admission only after competent review and a recorded decision.
3. Roles and governance
Staff and contractor evidence is required for the organisations and production sites within scope. Wage assessment must reconcile contracts, payroll, actual payments, working time/overtime and relevant deductions against the applicable jurisdiction and pay period. Legal minimum wage and a living-wage commitment are distinct criteria; neither is inferred from the other. Recruitment practices/fees, forced or child labour risks, health and safety, worker voice, freedom of association, grievances and verified corrective actions require scoped evidence. Applicable worker groups, sites, period, sampling coverage and unassessed populations remain explicit. Employer statements, social-audit reports and worker testimony are separate evidence types and must be assessed together; an audit or policy alone does not establish full compliance.
Personal employment, payroll, payment and grievance records remain restricted. Public verification shows reviewed scope, findings, dates, limitations and unresolved corrective actions; it must not expose worker identities, bank details or sensitive testimony. No individual staff records have been collected by this build.
Required functions are scheme ownership, standard setting, evidence collection, assessment, certification decision, monitoring and appeals. Accountability must be assigned to actual people or organisations with documented competence. Software can collect and check evidence but cannot manufacture human qualifications, laboratory accreditation or third-party independence.
Standard changes require a documented rationale, source review, affected-party consultation, conflict review, independent approval, version history and transition rules. Urgent safety/evidence failures can suspend offers without waiting for a normal revision cycle. An appeal cannot restore a suspended offer automatically.
No certification decision authority, qualified assessor roster or independent appeals function has been appointed yet. These are unmet launch requirements, not roles claimed to exist.
4. Category annex contract
Every active annex must name: product boundary; jurisdiction; applicable authoritative requirements and editions; criterion IDs; test/sample methods; acceptance conditions; permitted evidence types and age; assessor competence; monitoring triggers; and allowed claim wording. Not-applicable decisions require a reason, supporting evidence and independent approval. Draft annexes cannot admit products.
Active annexes: none. Adult textile kits have candidate evidence requirements TK-0.1, published separately below; they remain inactive while technical acceptance criteria and competent adoption are outstanding. The current basket/bag records are research examples. Material labels such as natural, jute or cotton do not establish sustainability. No lifecycle advantage, carbon saving, durability period or recycled-content percentage is asserted without product-specific evidence.
5. Public verification registry and claims
The future issued-certificate registry must expose certificate ID, scope, standard/annex version, current status, issuer, decision/expiry dates, relevant limitations and a path to evidence summaries and complaints. Private audit files, personal information and commercial costs stay protected. A static logo is never the verification authority.
Permitted operational states: research, assessment pending, approved, suspended, revoked and expired. Draft software currently uses withheld/eligible-for-release-review; eligibility is not a released certificate. Approved mark use requires a valid issued certificate and a scheme licence. No licence or trademark registration has been obtained or claimed.
No broad “sustainable”, “ethical”, “carbon neutral” or equivalent claim follows solely from admission. Each such claim requires its own sufficiently scoped evidence and clear qualifications. Metatron must distinguish its own assurance from external certifications and accurately name the actual issuer.
6. Complaints, appeals and corrections
The scheme needs an accessible complaint route with case ID, conflict screening, evidence preservation, severity triage, reasoned outcome and an appeal to a decision-maker independent of the original assessment/decision. Time limits and record retention must be adopted before launch based on risk and applicable obligations. No response deadline is promised by this draft.
Decisions must be auditable. Corrections preserve the original record and explain changes. Withdrawal and expiry remain visible in the registry; a removed badge must not erase a past decision or affected-customer remedy.
7. What must be proved before launch
- Approved scheme governance and legally reviewed claim/mark rules.
- Competent, independent assessment, decision and appeals arrangements.
- At least one approved category annex and complete real product evidence chain.
- Public certificate verification and working complaint/revocation processes.
- Shopify admission enforced through every selling path, including changes made outside the admission adapter; continuous expiry/change controls and failure handling tested.
- Merchant ownership, business/payment configuration and real fulfilment/returns testing.
Current software demonstrates evidence checks and operator-run draft containment. It does not establish certification competence, continuous checkout enforcement, external recognition or real product compliance.
8. Sources and standard development
Source research is maintained in `standards-primary-research.md`. The design is informed by primary assurance and due-diligence frameworks; citing them does not claim conformity or permission to reproduce their marks. Normative Metatron rules above are a proposal, not requirements attributed verbatim to any external organisation.
The CMA Green Claims Code checklist ↗ is a claim-substantiation reference. The Shopify productUpdate API ↗ is the technical reference for changing blocked products to draft; it is not a certification mechanism.
The Siegel — disqualification rules
Version 0.1 · scheme policy draft · 18 October 2026. The 7/10 threshold and exclusion of clearly evidenced unsustainable practices are the founder's requirements. The specific rules below implement those requirements; they are not an external accreditation or a claim that the scheme is operating as a certification body.
1. The decision rule
List the evidence, sources, scope, dates and gaps first. Then grade every required area from 1 to 10. The lowest required-area grade across the product and its mapped components, organisations, sites and lifecycle determines the overall evidence grade. No averaging and no compensation between areas.
The Siegel requires every required area to reach at least 7/10, no confirmed disqualifying finding, no unresolved material concern, and complete, current scope. A grade measures the quality of evidence. It does not measure how good the practice is: grade-10 evidence of underpayment disqualifies. Offsets, donations, another certificate or excellent performance elsewhere cannot cancel a failure.
Qualification under these rules still requires a competent independent decision, an approved category annex and a valid issued certificate before the cube may be used as product approval. A QR code is a route to the evidence record, not approval by itself.
2. Findings that disqualify
Each rule applies to the exact product, material, batch, organisation or site within the assessed chain. A confirmed failure disqualifies the affected scope and every dependent product whose assessment relies on it. Unrelated products or companies are not automatically accused. Where shared operations cannot be separated reliably, the affected scope stays on hold until it can be determined.
| Rule | Disqualifying finding | Evidence to assess |
|---|
| D01 · Forced labour | Forced or compulsory labour, trafficking, debt bondage, coercive recruitment fees or retention of documents that prevents workers leaving freely. | Confidential worker evidence, recruitment terms, fee/payment records and independent investigation. |
| D02 · Child labour | Employment below the applicable minimum age, or prohibited hazardous work by children. Lawful age-appropriate youth work is not automatically child labour. | Age verification, task/hours records and applicable location-specific rules; protect children and arrange appropriate remediation. |
| D03 · Pay and hours | Pay below the applicable legal minimum, unlawful deductions, unpaid required wages/overtime, or working hours/rest that breach applicable requirements. | Reconcile contracts, actual hours, deductions and payments for the jurisdiction, worker group and pay period. A living-wage claim requires its own adopted benchmark and evidence. |
| D04 · Worker rights | Discrimination, violence, harassment, retaliation, suppression of worker organising/collective bargaining, or other confirmed violation of an applicable fundamental labour right. | Worker testimony, grievance records, employment decisions and independent assessment, with safe confidentiality. |
| D05 · Workplace safety | A confirmed breach of applicable safety requirements, including unaddressed serious fire, structural, machinery, chemical or protective-equipment hazards. | Site inspection, risk assessment, incident evidence, applicable requirements and corrective-action verification. Imminent danger warrants immediate precautionary suspension. |
| D06 · Material origin and land rights | Illegally harvested/extracted material, illegal wildlife products, or sourcing involving confirmed infringement of applicable land or community rights. | Origin/permit records, land and community-rights evidence, lot links and independent checks; supplier nationality alone is not evidence of wrongdoing. |
| D07 · Environmental harm | Unlawful emissions/discharge, illegal hazardous waste handling, breach of binding environmental permits, or failure of an adopted category limit for pollution, resource use, biodiversity or ecosystem protection. | Measurements with methods and periods, permits, waste/effluent records, site findings and the exact category threshold. No universal invented carbon, water or packaging limit. |
| D08 · Climate and resources | A confirmed failure of a mandatory climate, energy, water or resource-use criterion in the approved category annex, or a materially false claim about those impacts. | Scope-defined lifecycle inventory, relevant primary records, methods, boundaries and the adopted criterion. Carbon offsets alone do not prove actual impact reduction. |
| D09 · Traceability and integrity | Fabricated, altered or stolen certificates/audits; deliberate substitution of materials; concealed production sites/subcontractors; or false product/batch/chain-of-custody links. | Issuer records, transaction records, lot reconciliation, audit trail and independent authentication. An innocent unresolved mismatch is held for review rather than labelled fraud. |
| D10 · Product safety and legality | A product fails applicable safety rules or mandatory tests, contains a prohibited substance, is counterfeit, or is subject to an applicable unresolved recall/withdrawal. | Exact model/batch and market, regulator notices, competent test reports, required warnings and corrective actions. A recall for another batch is not automatically applicable. |
| D11 · Claims and mark use | A materially misleading sustainability/labour claim, concealed adverse finding, or false use of The Siegel or another certification mark. | The actual claim and presentation, underlying evidence, claim scope, current certificate status and authorised use. Remove/correct the claim and verify the underlying issue. |
| D12 · Use, returns and end of life | Confirmed failure of mandatory durability, repair, returns, reuse, recovery or disposal criteria; or a promised route that does not exist for the stated market. | Test evidence, actual service/returns records, local collection and processing routes, and the adopted category requirements. A recycling symbol alone does not prove a working route. |
| D13 · Assessment and remedy obstruction | Bribing or coercing assessors, retaliating against witnesses, knowingly withholding adverse evidence, or refusing a required remedy while continuing to claim approval. | Protected investigation, decision and communication records, conflict checks and verification of remedy. Do not expose workers to obtain public proof. |
| D14 · Financing | Confirmed illicit/prohibited funding, material ownership/funding fraud, diversion of restricted proceeds, misleading green-finance claims, or connected funding/use that fails a mandatory environmental, labour or due-diligence/remedy criterion. | Reconcile ownership/control, capital agreements, receipts and use of funds; verify actual legal and impact linkage. Apply FINANCING-STANDARD.md; a bank name, PEP flag or capital type alone is not misconduct. |
Any additional confirmed failure of a mandatory criterion also disqualifies. These categories do not permit a failure merely because its precise form is absent from the examples. Criteria must be adopted before assessment; no ad hoc moral judgement, country blacklist or retroactively invented numerical limit may replace them.
3. Evidence gaps and concerns
Missing evidence is not proof of misconduct. It does prevent qualification: a required area below 7, unknown chain participant, incomplete bill of materials, expired/revoked evidence, unresolved material contradiction, unverified issuer/scope, or missing category annex means not yet qualified. A supplier declaration alone cannot establish independent verification.
A specific credible allegation, material discrepancy or credible imminent-risk signal triggers assessment hold, or precautionary suspension if a certificate is already active. It does not need to reach evidence grade 7 before protection begins. Investigate promptly with safe worker participation and independent review. A generic rumour is recorded and screened; it is not automatically a confirmed failure or a public accusation.
To record a confirmed disqualification, preserve: rule/criterion version; exact object/site/batch and affected dates; the applicable requirement; source and private evidence references; assessed reliability and limitations; reasoned finding; severity and affected scope; competent assessor and independent decision reviewer; conflicts; decision date and review/expiry requirements. Evidence can include authoritative findings or a competent corroborated assessment; a court conviction is not universally required. Automated extraction and an AI opinion alone cannot confirm a finding.
Public records show the finding, affected scope and reasoned summary, with a correction/appeal route when operations are established. Raw payroll, identities of vulnerable workers, confidential testimony and restricted commercial documents stay private. Grade, finding and certificate status remain separate fields.
4. Scope, remedy and return
Confirmed failures prevent initial issuance or require suspension of affected existing approval. Dependent products stay unavailable in our shop until reviewed. Suspend use of the cube and update the public certificate/QR record when an operational certificate exists. Revocation is appropriate for unresolved or repeated failure, fraud, obstruction or a decision that approval cannot be restored; record the reason rather than inventing an automatic lifetime blacklist.
Re-entry requires the harmful practice to stop; proportionate remedy for affected people/environment; root-cause correction; independent verification of effectiveness; updated evidence in every affected required area at 7 or above; complete current scope; and a new independent decision. An action plan, promise, fee, donation, supplier switch or appeal alone does not restore approval. Removing a supplier from a diagram does not erase unresolved harm. An appeal is heard independently and does not automatically restore mark use or shop availability.
Suspend the seal and affected offers as needed; do not automatically terminate a supply relationship. Responsible disengagement must consider whether withdrawal worsens harm and the appropriate remedy. Preserve evidence and historical decisions. No fixed review SLA, permanent-ban period or automated reinstatement is invented by this draft.
5. Source basis and boundaries
- ILO fundamental principles and rights at work ↗: basis for forced labour, child labour, discrimination, worker organisation and safe/healthy work. These principles do not supply one universal wage rate or child-work age for every country.
- UK minimum-wage employer guidance ↗: example of pay-record requirements; check the applicable country and period rather than applying UK law globally.
- OECD due diligence guidance ↗: adverse-impact identification, prevention, mitigation, tracking, communication and remedy; severity includes scale, scope and irremediability. This guidance does not define our 7/10 threshold or require automatic supplier termination.
- UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights ↗: prevention, mitigation, remedy and care over the consequences of ending relationships.
- CMA Green Claims Code ↗: truthful, substantiated claims and whole-lifecycle context. A QR link cannot cure a materially misleading headline.
- UK product-safety responsibilities ↗: product/market-specific safety obligations. The exact applicable regime and annex must be established for the actual product.
These are primary-source foundations, not endorsements of The Siegel. Environmental and category limits still need competent adoption and review. Currently no product has a certificate, active annex or completed full-chain assessment. The code's grading projection is not continuous shop enforcement or an operational complaints/certification service.
The Siegel — environmental requirements
Version 0.1 draft · 18 October 2026 · no active product-category annex. These requirements define what the scheme must assess. They do not certify current products or reproduce licensed standards.
Environmental decision rule
Environmental performance and evidence quality are separate. First list the evidence and its limits; then rate each required area's evidence 1–10. All required areas must reach 7, and the actual measured performance must meet the applicable environmental criteria. Excellent evidence of excessive pollution still disqualifies. Legal compliance is the floor; the scheme also needs adopted category-specific performance criteria before it can substantiate approval.
A measurement standard tells us how to calculate an impact; it does not necessarily define acceptable impact. A company management-system certificate does not establish that an individual product is sustainable. No generic CO2, water or recycled-content threshold applies to all products. Adopt the appropriate product-category requirements, functional unit and geographic assumptions before assessment. No annex means no environmental approval.
Areas, evidence and disqualifying findings
| Required area | Reference and evidence | Disqualifies when confirmed |
|---|
| E01 · Whole lifecycle | ISO 14040/14044 lifecycle framework; full bill of materials, raw-material extraction, processing, packaging, transport/storage, use/maintenance and end-of-life scenarios; unit of function, boundaries, allocation, data dates, uncertainty and exclusions. Assess all material impact categories rather than selecting only a favourable one. | Materially false or concealed lifecycle information; failure of an adopted lifecycle/category requirement. Incomplete boundaries remain an evidence hold, not a false accusation. |
| E02 · Climate | GHG Protocol Product Standard and applicable ISO 14067 method; kg CO2e per declared functional unit, site/process activity data, emission factors, land-use effects and transport/use/disposal assumptions. Keep actual reductions, removals, credits and avoided-emission claims distinct. | Breach of the adopted category climate criterion or a materially false emissions/reduction claim. Buying offsets does not repair a failed criterion or prove a low-impact product. |
| E03 · Water | ISO 14046 water-footprint assessment; AWS site/catchment stewardship where relevant; withdrawal, consumption, source, location/season, local scarcity/ecosystem needs and discharge quality. Litres alone are insufficient. | Illegal abstraction, breached discharge limits or confirmed failure of adopted catchment/ecological and water-impact requirements. |
| E04 · Land, biodiversity and origin | Trace origin and land-use change for raw materials; permits and applicable land/community rights; use relevant forest/textile/agriculture standards only within their actual scope. Match FSC/GOTS or other scheme evidence to the real material and transaction. | Illegal harvest/extraction, prohibited ecosystem conversion or habitat damage under the adopted category rule, or infringed applicable land/community rights. A lawful operation can still fail a stricter published ecosystem criterion. |
| E05 · Chemicals and pollution | Applicable market/site chemical restrictions, product-category restricted-substance list and process controls; exact substance/concentration, sampling/test method and date; air/soil/wastewater measurements and permit limits. | Prohibited substances above applicable limits, unlawful emissions/dumping or confirmed failure of an adopted stricter pollution criterion. A safety data sheet alone does not prove product/batch compliance. |
| E06 · Materials and resources | Exact material composition and mass, extraction impacts, energy/resource use and substantiated recycled-content claims. Preserve physical segregation, mass-balance or other control models as actually used; do not invent physical origin from accounting credits. | False content/origin claims, illegal sourcing, or failure of adopted resource-use/material criteria. “Natural”, “vegan”, “organic” or “recycled” alone does not establish full sustainability. |
| E07 · Durability and repair | Applicable category test methods for service life, strength, wear, repair/disassembly and replacement parts, with realistic use/maintenance assumptions. | Failure of an adopted durability/repair requirement or materially false lifespan/repair claims. There is no invented common minimum lifetime for bags, electronics and consumables. |
| E08 · Packaging, transport and waste | Packaging masses/materials, fulfilment and return routes, actual transport mode/distance, waste manifests, treatment operators and local reuse/recovery infrastructure; verify product-specific producer obligations where applicable. | Illegal waste handling/export, false disposal/recycling claims, or failure of adopted packaging/logistics/end-of-life requirements. A recycling symbol does not prove local recovery. |
All eight areas need an applicability decision. A genuinely inapplicable criterion requires a recorded technical reason, evidence and independent approval; it is never silently removed to raise a score. Absence of an identified breach is not proof that the environmental requirements have been met.
Standards hierarchy and category adoption
- Record the applicable site and sales-market law, permits and prohibited substances/activities, with effective dates. One country's rules are not universal law.
- Select a credible product performance criteria set for the actual category, using published criteria such as the EU Ecolabel where scope fits. An EU voluntary criterion can be adopted as a scheme benchmark for UK-first selection; it is not automatically a UK legal duty or permission to use the EU mark.
- Define any additional Siegel criteria through documented source review and competent independent approval. Pin the source edition, clause, unit, numerical limit or qualitative condition, test/sampling method, location, period, evidence currency, acceptance rule and transition date. Deal explicitly with uncertainty and trade-offs. Never pick limits retrospectively to admit a preferred product.
- Verify the exact product and chain against those criteria. Record each environmental area's score, finding, gaps, reviewer and next review. A confirmed mandatory failure disqualifies affected scope and dependent products; a credible unresolved concern causes a hold. Reinstatement needs independently verified correction and a new decision.
For the initial textile/craft investigations, assess the applicability of current EU Ecolabel textile criteria, relevant GOTS/FSC/other material-scheme claims, chemicals/process evidence, actual durability tests and the full cotton/material chain. Thread certification cannot approve a whole kit, and harmful-substance testing cannot stand in for climate, water, labour or farm-origin evidence. No candidate has yet completed this adoption and assessment.
Primary references
References inform the scheme; none endorses The Siegel. Research and disqualification rules are maintained alongside this document. Detailed category thresholds, qualified decision operations and continuous shop enforcement remain outstanding.
The Siegel — transport requirements
Version 0.1 draft · 18 October 2026. Transport is required throughout the chain, including raw materials, inter-factory movements, export/import, warehouses and hubs, fulfilment, last mile, failed deliveries, returns and end-of-life collection. A green last mile cannot hide upstream air freight or unassessed return journeys.
Measurement basis
Use ISO 14083:2023 ↗ for transport-chain GHG accounting and the GLEC Framework ↗ as practical methodology. Smart Freight Centre's public resource currently lists version 3.2 ↗; pin the edition actually applied rather than silently treating any later training reference as the applicable standard. These are accounting methods, not automatic sustainability certificates or universal emissions limits.
Required evidence
- Each leg's origin/destination, actual mode, distance and date; carrier and subcontractors; shipment/product or batch linkage. Publish redacted summaries while protecting private addresses and commercial documents.
- Shipment mass and relevant volume, load/allocation assumptions and empty-running treatment. Distinguish actual values, carrier averages and modelled defaults, with source and uncertainty.
- Fuel/electricity use or appropriately sourced emission factors; well-to-wheel GHG accounting with scope and allocation stated; hub/warehouse handling and energy within the adopted boundary. Record both allocated kg CO2e per delivery/product and the relevant transport activity/intensity, without counting the same leg twice in the product footprint.
- Refrigeration and other relevant handling requirements; damage, failed deliveries and returns. Identify whether a footprint uses observed operations or forward scenarios.
- Applicable carrier/site legal, worker-pay, hours and safety evidence. Legal driving-time limits depend on the jurisdiction and operation; do not invent one worldwide limit.
- Evidence supporting any low-emission, renewable-fuel, electric-delivery, book-and-claim or offset assertion. Keep physical shipment emissions and separately allocated environmental attributes distinct; an electric last-mile vehicle does not establish zero lifecycle emissions.
Disqualification and holds
Confirmed falsification of route/mode/emissions, concealed carriers or transport legs, illegal transport/waste movement, applicable pay/safety breaches, materially misleading green-delivery claims, or failure of an adopted category transport criterion disqualifies the affected scope. Significant leakage, discharge or other environmental failure is assessed under the environmental rules as well.
Unknown routes/carriers, missing material legs, unsupported allocation, unsubstantiated emission factors, unresolved risk or evidence below 7/10 prevent qualification. Missing data is not a finding that a carrier committed wrongdoing. Do not grant a high score solely because the carrier is a well-known brand or holds a company certificate.
Air freight, road delivery, sea freight and long distance are not automatically disqualifying categories. Compare the real service/function, consolidation, realistic alternatives, handling losses and total lifecycle impacts against the approved category criteria. Any no-air-freight rule or emissions ceiling must be explicitly adopted with its scope and exceptions before assessment; none is invented here.
The lowest required transport-area evidence score must reach 7/10, and actual practice must meet the performance requirements. Offsets or a carrier pledge cannot cancel a confirmed failure. Correction requires verified remedy and independent reassessment; changing the label or excluding a leg is not correction. No current research product has verified transport-chain evidence or a transport approval.
The Siegel — company financing requirements
Version 0.1 draft · 18 October 2026. Financing is a required assessment area for each relevant organisation in the chain. Assess how it is owned and controlled, where its capital comes from, what it funds, and whether financing claims match actual practice. This is a sustainability-assurance requirement, not an investment rating, credit score, banking authorisation or claim of regulatory AML compliance.
Five required evidence areas
| Area | Evidence and assessment | Disqualifies when confirmed |
|---|
| F01 · Ownership and control | Current legal entity and ownership/control chain, beneficial ownership where applicable, registry records corroborated with company records, voting/control arrangements and material changes. A registry entry is a source, not independent proof that all entries are accurate. | Materially false or deliberately concealed ownership/control, falsified records or an applicable prohibited ownership/control arrangement. An unresolved owner is an evidence hold, not proof of criminality. |
| F02 · Sources of capital | Reconcile material equity, loans, grants, shareholder funding, retained earnings and other relevant capital with agreements, accounts and actual receipts. Identify material financing counterparties and relevant funding conditions; record the period, amounts/coverage and limitations privately. | Corroborated illicit proceeds, bribery/corruption, fraud, laundering or a financing transaction prohibited by applicable law/sanctions after exact identity, ownership/control, date and lawful licence/exemption checks. |
| F03 · Use of funds and adverse impacts | Trace actual allocation and material onward financing/investments within the assessed scope. Examine approved budgets, disbursements, project/asset records and the connection between funding and actual environmental/labour impacts. | Financing shown to cause or contribute to a mandatory environmental/labour failure, or directly linked unresolved harm that fails the adopted due-diligence/remedy criterion. Record the real connection and role; do not infer responsibility from a shared bank name. |
| F04 · Integrity and accountability | Governance, conflicts, independent checks and documented responses to credible financing concerns; accounts and transaction reconciliation sufficient to support the claimed scope. | Falsification, deliberate concealment of relevant financing risks, bribed assurance, diversion of restricted funds, or obstruction/refusal of required remediation while retaining approval claims. |
| F05 · Financing claims | If green/social/sustainability financing is claimed, review the instrument/framework, eligibility rules, allocation and impact reporting, external review and covenants actually applicable. Otherwise record and verify the absence of such claims rather than inventing a bond requirement. | Materially false green-finance claims, misuse of restricted proceeds or a confirmed failure of an applicable mandatory financing criterion. An issuer's green project cannot approve unrelated products or all its operations. |
List evidence, scope and gaps first, then grade each area 1–10. Every required area must reach 7. High-quality evidence of a prohibited or harmful funding practice disqualifies even at grade 10. Missing evidence, a material unresolved contradiction or an unassessed concern prevents qualification; it does not establish misconduct.
Boundaries that keep the assessment fair
Assess actual relevant funding flows, control and impacts. Debt, equity, public funding, crowdfunding, profit or bootstrapping are not inherently disqualifying. PEP status, nationality, an offshore address or a risk score alone is not proof of wrongdoing. These may inform proportionate additional review, not an automatic accusation.
A company's use of a bank does not by itself link it to every activity in that bank's global portfolio. Conversely, a favourable bank/ESG label cannot hide known relevant harm. Document cause, contribution or direct business-relationship linkage, influence and required response. A financier seeking its own company-wide approval needs an explicitly defined sector assessment of its relevant portfolio, not just one green project. Unassessed material boundaries cannot be presented as complete.
For use-of-proceeds instruments, assess actual allocation to eligible activities and reporting. Sustainability-linked instruments may finance general corporate purposes: inspect their actual KPIs, targets, verification and terms rather than assuming all proceeds are ring-fenced. Neither instrument type proves whole-company or product sustainability.
Retain private funding agreements, account/payment evidence, personal ownership information and transaction details under appropriate access controls. Public records expose the assessed entity/scope, period, source types, scores, findings and limitations, not bank credentials, account numbers, private contracts or personal dossiers. This build has not collected or verified actual company financing records.
Decision, propagation and correction
Apply the general disqualification procedure: competent assessment, authentic evidence, exact applicable rule and scope, independent decision review, protected evidence, history and appeal. Confirmed financing failures block the affected organisation's approval and dependent products whose assessed chain relies on it. A credible unresolved concern causes a hold or precautionary suspension; automated name matching and model output cannot confirm financial crime.
Re-entry requires the harmful/prohibited flow to stop, appropriate remedy and preventive controls, independent verification, updated evidence at 7 or above and a new reasoned decision. Changing a bank, investor or label alone does not erase harm. Suspend the seal/affected offers as appropriate without assuming immediate disengagement is always the responsible remedy.
Primary foundations
- FATF beneficial-ownership guidance ↗: adequate, accurate and current ownership information through multiple sources. FATF recommendations address national frameworks and regulated obligations; this scheme's evidence requirements are its own policy.
- FATF PEP guidance ↗: preventive checks do not mean that politically exposed people are involved in crime.
- OECD responsible business conduct in finance ↗: assess and address actual/potential impacts associated with finance, including corporate lending and project finance.
- ICMA Green Bond Principles ↗: voluntary guidance on use of proceeds, project evaluation, proceeds management and reporting. Match the current instrument's adopted version; the green label alone is not assurance.
The score threshold and disqualification consequences are The Siegel policy, not endorsements or certification granted by FATF, OECD or ICMA. Approved category/finance criteria, trusted assessments and operational issuance controls remain necessary before any real certificate.
The Siegel — topic weighting and score algorithm
Version 0.1 draft · 18 October 2026. This is a transparent scheme algorithm, not an internationally validated rating scale. It produces a comparative evidence index alongside the mandatory qualification grade. It cannot issue a certificate.
1. Six topics
Environmental impacts; people and working conditions; transport and fulfilment; company financing; identity and chain of custody; product/use/customer evidence. Every required criterion maps to at least one topic. Shared environmental/labour or material-origin evidence may affect more than one topic; that mapping is explicit in weighting.py. Commercial evidence does not establish environmental sustainability.
For each topic, take the lowest required criterion evidence grade across its mapped records. Missing evidence or an unmapped topic receives 1. Repeating a good record cannot raise a score, and companies with more sites do not gain weight merely from having more records. A complete product must still include every required chain-participant kind.
2. Derive weights from reviewed impacts
For topic t, use three source-backed severity dimensions on 1–5 scales: scale of harm, breadth of affected people/ecosystems, and difficulty of remedy. Use the maximum, so a severe irreparable impact is not averaged down by a small affected population.
Priority(t) = max(scale, scope, irremediability) × category relevance
Category relevance is 1–3: indirect/supporting, material, or direct/major hotspot. Assess relevance from the actual product function, materials/processes, geography, lifecycle impacts and affected people. Impact dimensions and relevance need documented category-specific anchors, primary references and competent review before a non-default weight is used. These numerical mappings and this multiplication are proposed Siegel policy, not an OECD or ISO formula.
Weight(t) = Priority(t) / sum of all six priorities. All priorities stay positive. No required topic can be given zero weight. A topic may not be dropped because evidence is difficult to obtain or because another topic performs well.
Unknown/unapproved/expired priorities retain the conservative maximum: severity 5 × relevance 3 = 15. If every priority is unknown, weights are equal at one sixth each. This is an explicit unresolved baseline, not a researched claim that every topic has identical real-world importance. Missing evidence never makes an inconvenient topic less important.
A weight assessment names its topic, product/scope binding, three severity inputs, category relevance, source links, rationale, assessment date and expiry. Its exact digest must be approved in the separately controlled private governance register before it can change a weight. Source-file flags cannot approve themselves. Wrong-scope, expired or unapproved entries cannot lower priorities. Conflicting current approved entries fall back to the conservative maximum. A new profile requires independent review; no automatic fitting to our own product outcomes or desired sales result.
3. Calculate the comparative score
Weighted evidence index = sum(Weight(t) × TopicGrade(t)).
The result stays on a 1–10 scale and is displayed to two decimals. The denominator includes every topic. Arithmetic aggregation of ordinal grades is a declared design assumption: this is a comparison aid, not a percentage likelihood of truth, a physical environmental measure or proof of sustainability.
Publish the six topic grades, priority basis and weights beside the index. Also report a sensitivity scenario: increase or decrease one topic's weight by 20% at a time, renormalise and show the resulting score range. This is a stress scenario, not an empirical confidence interval. Large sensitivity requires attention before using ranking results.
4. Apply the non-compensating qualification rule
The qualification evidence grade remains the lowest required-area grade across the full chain. Every area must be at least 7, scope must be complete and current, and confirmed unsustainable practices or unresolved material findings block approval. Applicable performance criteria, trusted evidence and independent issuance review remain necessary.
Example — synthetic, not a real product: five equally weighted topics at 9 and labour at 4 produce an index of 8.17/10. The product still does not qualify because labour is below 7. Grade-10 evidence establishing underpayment also disqualifies. Neither a weighted average nor a rounded display can override those rules.
Source basis and current state
No category impact-weight assessments have been approved. Actual portal records therefore use the explicitly marked equal-weight unresolved baseline. Real product sustainability, empirical calibration, category anchors, operating certification and continuous checkout enforcement remain unproved. Method changes must be versioned and prior outcomes retained.
The Siegel — commercial transparency
18 October 2026 · founder-directed position and disclosure policy.
The existing Metatron-wide principle is Every claim has evidence. The shop and The Siegel apply that principle; they do not introduce a new framework for Metatron World. This is a required operating standard, not a claim that every Metatron system or draft research observation has already been independently verified.
Metatron Marketing Ltd is developing a for-profit shop. The Siegel is its privately developed admission standard and proposed mark. The same business has a commercial interest in retail sales and in its standard. It is not presented as a charity, nonprofit organisation, government approval or an independent third-party certification body. A registered trademark, accreditation or external endorsement must never be implied without actual evidence.
The intended proposition is straightforward: the shop sells products only after they qualify under The Siegel's published rules and receive a valid scoped approval. The shop earns profit from sales. Qualification does not mean a donation is made, that an outside body endorses the shop, or that every product outside the scheme is unsustainable. The current shop remains a preview with no approved assortment or issued certificates.
What customers must be able to inspect
- Who stands behind it: the retail operator, standard operator, shared ownership/commercial interest and the actual issuer of each assessment or external certificate. Do not imply independence merely because the retailer uses a separate programme name or logo.
- What the mark means: exact product/component/company/site and period, applicable criteria/version, scope exclusions and present approval status. The cube and QR do not establish approval by themselves.
- Why a decision was made: source-linked evidence summaries, dates, gaps and limitations; criterion-level grades and findings; the minimum-7 qualification rule; comparative weights and their basis; adverse findings and the reason for suspension, withdrawal or refusal. Evidence quality and sustainability performance remain distinct.
- Commercial relationships that matter: relevant supplier, affiliate, sponsorship, paid/free sample and assessment-funding relationships, including who paid for assessment and any material conflict. Relevant relationships must be declared before relying on an assessment; they cannot purchase a favourable finding.
- How decisions are challenged or corrected: dated decision history, correction/reassessment outcomes and an independent appeal process when operational. Never describe an appeals team, service or deadline as active before it exists.
The retailer's profit motive must not decide the evidence grade or override a failure. Proposed governance therefore separates collection/procurement, competent assessment and independent decision review, with conflicts disclosed. The actual qualified roster, operating appeals process and certificate issuance arrangements still need to be established before launch; describing them as already independent would be false.
Full transparency with protected evidence
Public transparency covers the meaning and basis of claims and decisions. Raw worker/payroll/health records, bank credentials and account details, confidential testimony and restricted documents stay protected. Publish appropriate reviewed summaries and source metadata with exclusions explained; confidentiality cannot be used to hide a material adverse finding or claim unsupported completeness. This policy does not invent an open-book-margin pledge or publish private financial records.
Keep the original and corrected versions of assessments, dates and reasons; do not silently remove inconvenient evidence. Any actual complaint route must be accessible and accurately described. The current development portal has no live certificate-application or complaint-submission service.
Transparency supports evidence-based responses to criticism. It does not prevent allegations, guarantee reputational protection or create immunity from legal obligations. The proper response is authentic evidence, disclosed interests, fair review and correction where warranted—not a claim that possessing our own mark makes criticism invalid.
Primary-source basis
The CMA environmental-claims guidance ↗, particularly the discussion of visual symbols and self-declared marks, distinguishes an own-business symbol from independent assurance and stresses that claims and overall presentation must be substantiated and clear. The disclosure commitments above are our policy; the guidance does not endorse The Siegel, establish accreditation or validate the scheme's 1–10 scale.
