About safety. Certification or compliance?

25 July 2014

Over recent years there has been much talk about safety certificates. The European Union has adopted regulations and various standards on the matter and many organisations like the Hellenic Organisation for Standardisation (ELOT) have undertaken the task of certifying that various products comply with those standards. There are therefore products that comply with European standards as well as products whose production has been certified based on those standards.

What is the difference? One could argue that the two products both provide the same level of safety since they both comply with the standards. Perhaps! Certification means that a competent organisation has undertaken to carry out various tests on the product, has made suggestions about how to modify the illustration and has in the end confirmed that the product has specific features which are required to ensure compliance with each standard. From the viewpoint of the business that wants to certify its products, this means a commitment in terms of human and financial resources etc. since the certification procedure is time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, any company willing to get involved in such a complex process shows that it really does attach importance to safety. On the other hand, since the standards are widely known, anyone can claim that his products ‘conform’ to any of those standards. However, that is a claim that no one can substantiate.

So we have products whose safety is certified by competent bodies on the one hand, and on the other, a claim that can be easily refuted.

So if you are really interested in the safety of your nursery room, look for certified products such as Licno’s products which have the certification from ELKEDE Technology & Illustration Centre’s Timber Laboratory in line with the European standards ELOT EN 716-1:95 and EN716-1:95.