###### Abstract  
(1) Background: The Cradle to Cradle CertifiedTM Products Program (C2C Certified for short) is a scheme for the certification of products that meet the criteria and principles of the Cradle to Cradle(r) design approach. The objective of this paper is to characterize C2C Certified as an instrument for external communication in the context of environmental labeling and declarations.  
(2) Method: An eco-label characterization scheme consisting of 22 attributes was used to analyze C2C Certified. In addition, it was compared with the established standardization labeling typologies, namely Type I and Type III. This was further illustrated in an example within the building and construction sector. (3) Results: C2C Certified can be classified neither as a Type I, nor a Type III label. The main weaknesses of C2C Certified from a labeling perspective are: the generic, but not product-specific focus of the awarding criteria, the lack of a life cycle perspective, and the incompletely transparent stakeholder involvement procedure. Nevertheless, for certain attributes (e.g., the awarding format), C2C Certified provides practical solutions and goes beyond a Type I eco-label. Substantial similarities between Type III declarations and C2C Certified cannot be identified. (4) Conclusions: The main advantages and shortcomings of C2C Certified from a labeling perspective are pointed out. The approach shows similarities to a Type I eco-label, and efforts toward conformance with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) labelling standards would result in improving its comparability, recognition, and robustness.  
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focusing on how users approach certification and on how and whether life cycle assessment (LCA) can be incorporated. Similarly, [PERSON] et al. (2016) focused more on the C2C concept from a business perspective in product development, and additionally on how LCA can complement C2C. [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2017) compared the C2C approach with eco-efficiency and LCA. They briefly addressed C2C Certified by using certified products as examples, and they compared their performance from an LCA perspective. [PERSON] et al. (2017) briefly juxtaposed C2C Certified with LCA to show two fundamentally different approaches in assessing the effects of products on the environment, i.e., the benefits versus the burdens. [PERSON] et al. (2018) compared the environmental impact associated with different levels of two C2C certification requirements by using LCA. Nevertheless, a comprehensive analysis of C2C Certified from a labeling perspective was missing. Recently in a book chapter, [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2019) explored C2C Certified, and briefly compared it with ISO Type I labeling, concluding that the program in focus has many similarities to classic Type I eco-labels, such as the Nordic Swan. Nevertheless, a systematic attributes-based comparison of C2C Certified and (common) environmental labeling schemes (based on ISO) is still missing.  
To address this gap, the objective of this paper is to characterize the C2C Certified program as an instrument for external communication in the context of environmental labels and declarations, by applying a comprehensive set of attributes.  
The present work is structured as follows: Section 2 provides introductory information on environmental labeling and ISO, followed with an explanation of C2C Certified. Section 3 describes the materials and methods needed to achieve the given objective. Section 4 provides the results, while the discussion and conclusions are given in Sections 5 and 6, respectively.