Material declarations
A material declaration is how one company tells the next what a part is made of, in a structure that can be checked rather than guessed. These are the formats in circulation, who asks for which, where they go wrong in practice, and how Pareo produces and validates them at scale.
What a material declaration is
A material declaration reports the substances and materials a product contains, so the receiver can check compliance instead of taking a claim on trust.
Depth varies. A supplier statement answers yes or no on a named rule set. A declaration against a substance list reports the concentration of every substance on that list. A full material declaration reports every substance down to the homogeneous material, ideally summing to 100 % of the part's mass.
The deeper the declaration, the more effort it costs and the more of the recipe it exposes. It also stays useful longer, because a newly regulated substance can be checked against data already held instead of re-surveying suppliers.
Knowledge base: material declaration ↗Knowledge base: full material declaration ↗
The formats, and who asks for which
- IPC-1752A. The electronics industry's XML format, published by IPC with a schema, in classes A to D: a compliance query and reply, amounts by material grouping, a product-level composition summary, and a full material declaration down to the homogeneous material. It was historically delivered as a PDF form with the XML embedded.
- IMDS. The automotive supply chain's shared database. Each tier submits a Material Data Sheet breaking a part into its materials and substances; what has to be reported comes from the GADSL.
- CMRT and EMRT. The Conflict Minerals Reporting Template, maintained by the Responsible Minerals Initiative, collects smelters and country of origin for tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold. The EMRT extends the same approach to cobalt and mica.
- chemSHERPA. Managed in Japan, in two formats: chemSHERPA-AI for articles and chemSHERPA-CI for chemical products. Its substance list is based on the IEC 62474 declarable substance list.
IPC (electronics.org) ↗Responsible Minerals Initiative ↗chemsherpa.net ↗Knowledge base: IMDS ↗
Where they go wrong in practice
- Part numbers that do not match. The customer's number, your number and the supplier's number are three strings for one part, and a declaration filed against the wrong one is worse than none.
- Percentages that do not close. A full material declaration is meant to account for 100 % of the part's mass. One that does not is not a full declaration, whatever it is labelled.
- Substances identified loosely. A trade name or an alloy grade where a CAS number was expected leaves the receiver guessing which substance was meant.
- Declarations that have aged. The Candidate List moved after the file was written, so the file is accurate about a list that no longer looks that way.
- Schema-valid but wrong. A file can pass the published schema and still contradict the bill of material behind it.
How Pareo produces and validates them at scale
- Ingest. Supplier declarations arrive as XML, spreadsheets, PDFs and forms. Each is parsed into one internal structure, with the source file kept.
- Resolve. Parts and substances are matched to your own records, so a declaration lands on the right part rather than on a similar string.
- Validate. Schema, mass balance, substance identification and currency against today's lists are checked before a file is trusted.
- Roll up. Component data aggregates to assemblies and to the finished product, keeping the trail to each contributing document.
- Emit. The declaration is produced in the format the customer asked for, and a person releases it.
What a declaration does not settle
A material declaration is not a proof of compliance. It hands the receiver the data to judge compliance themselves. The legal conformity decision stays with the receiver, and with the manufacturer placing the product on the market.
Pareo produces and validates these files. It does not certify anyone, and this page describes what the formats contain in general, not what any particular product should declare.
The reference behind these statements
Every statement about a format on this page traces to the Pareo knowledge base and to the official source it cites.
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Note: general educational information, not legal advice. Check the official source before relying on it.
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