There are many stages in the natural certification process. It is necessary to go through many process steps to get documents. We will consider these natural certification steps together with details.
Certification Application Phase
The certification of green areas and natural products, which are also approved by the European Union, must be compulsory for the society to be healthier and to achieve greener areas. It is seen that environmentally conscious people choose and buy the product by paying attention to the signs and certification statements on the products. Some consumers also want to know more about this process, starting from the collection stage of the product until the arrival of the machines.
The Natural Product Standard is based on the Eco-Label regulation. This label on the products shows that the product is environmentally friendly. The institution that is at the beginning of this process in our country is the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization. The Ministry of Environment and Urbanization has also assigned the Environmental Management System and Environmental Label Branch Directorate for this issue.
In the application phase of the certification process, some manufacturers, wholesalers and service providers apply for the Eko-label. These applications are taken into consideration and processed separately if they meet certain criteria.
Certification Contract Phase
If there is no negative situation in the pre-request stage after the companies have applied for the documents, contracts are made with the companies. If the companies applying for eco-labels have been found to comply with ISO 4001 Standards, the certification steps are quite easy.
If the certification application phase has been passed and the contract part has been completed, the certification work begins to be taken into the system. Documents, declarations, test results and similar information related to the company will be required from the contracted companies. After having this information, a preliminary evaluation will be sent to the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization for approval and submitted to the Ministry for approval.
Certification Sample Acceptance
If the companies that make their applications and make their contracts pass the preliminary evaluation, samples will be requested in order to make tests and analysis related to their products. The company that provides certification to companies that request certification provides earlier information on how to export and make samples. Samples from companies are tested in authorized laboratories in accordance with the procedure and regulations and the analysis of the results is sent to the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization for re-evaluation. Then, according to the result of the evaluation report received from the ministry, the company is answered. If it is positive, the company requesting a document for the next stage is invited.
Certification Testing
The samples of the firm that has completed all application, contract and sample stages are tested. The test and analysis stages can be done by itself, or the company that issued the certificate can also process the tests of the company requesting the document. However, there are two issues to be considered here. The first one is which tests will be done and the other is where these tests will be performed. The company that gives documents on these issues declares all the information to the other company.
The purpose of testing products from companies is to determine whether their products are harmful to the environment, from their raw material structure, to production, consumption and other life cycles. After the approval of the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization for the analysis of the test results, another stage is started for the document approval process.
Certification Approval Phase
The company requesting the certificate may have to wait a bit for the other approval stage after the test phase is over. Ministry approval may take up to 3 months in some cases. Because the naturalness of each company's product may not be the same as another company's product. While company X applies for documents for natural food products, another company Y may request documents for natural textile products. When the textile products are considered, the analysis of the fabrics may require a long work time for the environmental sensitivity to take longer than the other products.
Registered and approved documents are delivered to the company that has received the Ministry's approval in a short time. The validity period of the document is 12 months.
