Standards
VC
Verifiable Credential
A W3C-standard, cryptographically-signed claim about a subject (a product, a person, an organisation) that any third party can verify without contacting the issuer.
A Verifiable Credential bundles a claim ('this jacket was made by Mill X, certified GOTS-organic') with a signature from a known issuer. The format is JSON or JSON-LD, with cryptographic proof attached.
Under ESPR and the EU DPP, VCs are emerging as the standard way to carry third-party attestations — recycled-content certificates, fair-trade audits, repair-shop credentials — inside a DPP without forcing the verifier to trust the brand's own claims.