When companies apply for Ekomark © certification for their products and services and sign a contract, our organization Ekomark © sends the application request after the preliminary evaluation to the Certification Body and waits for the opinion of the organization. Afterwards, a sample of the product is requested along with information, declaration, document, test results and similar documents that will prove that the products or services applied for the Ekomark © Label meet the desired criteria. This sample is taken for the purpose of testing and analyzing the products.
The test and analysis studies on the sample may be made by the manufacturer itself and the test results may be brought to our organization, as well as these tests may be made by our organization over the sample taken. However, there are two important points. The first point is which tests should be performed for the products for which certification is requested, and the second point is where and how these tests will be performed. This applies to both issues in our organization Ekomark ©, Ekomark © Standard must provide information to companies requesting certification in accordance with the principles.
In addition, the said tests must be performed in laboratories operating in accordance with the ISO 17020 General Conditions for product conformity assessment standard or in a laboratory accredited by a system considered equivalent to this standard. A list of the laboratory is available on the website of the European Accreditation Agency on this subject.
After the test and inspection studies are completed, our organization Ekomark © prepares a technical file and sends it to the certification committee and requests the evaluation of the results.
In the ECO Label™, Eco-Label Board of Directors, the working group responsible for criteria development and revision deals with the entire life cycle of the products and develops criteria for each product group in order to reduce their negative impact on the environment during this time. The working group meets about three times a year and takes into account the applicability of the criteria, various development analyses, environmental and market researches and the current life cycle of the products, either making revisions or, if necessary, making new analyzes and preparing a draft. The draft is finally approved and published by the Eco-Label Board of Directors. These resolutions are then voted on in each country's own legislature.
Naturally, the life cycles of all products or services are different. For this reason, specific criteria are developed to suit the unique characteristics of each type of product. On the other hand, changes in the production processes or the evolution of the main and consumables used necessitate some revisions. Therefore Eco-Label Its regulation was last revised and published by the European Union in 2010 (66 / 2010 / EC Eco-Label Regulation).
In a nutshell, Ekomark © certification The tests, which are an important step in the studies, are used to determine that the impact of the product to be put on the Ekomark © Label has been reduced throughout its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction to production, consumption and destruction. From this point Ekomark © Tagalso contributes to energy use, waste reduction and environmental awareness.