The controversial reality about certifications…

Europes leading online clothing & accessories shop tries to gather all their supplier’s certifications into a green packaged logo.

How the hell should buyers be able to decode this?

I’m just going to tell you straight out. This post is not a decoding of all of the certifications to guide you, sorry, I just don’t have weeks to make an in-depth study to sort out standard manufacturing practices from leading eco-friendly certifications. Greenwashing vs. Impact Conscious initiatives to challenge status-quo.

What I am going to tell you about though, is the controversial ways of getting a “Certificate” – can we even trust them? I will let you decide that.

So let me start by giving you some short information about one of, if not the most common certifications in the EU – The CE certification.

The CE marking (an acronym for the French “Conformite Europeenne”) certifies that a product has met EU health, safety, and environmental requirements, which ensure consumer safety.

This is a GREAT thing, what’s the bad thing then?

Every manufacturer is self-certifying their products, because the EU doesn’t certify anything really. They just have this law about almost any products that they have to live up to the standard, but they don’t really make sure any product actually does. Sure, if someone dies because of your product, they will sue your company for lots of money!

In China (where most products are produced) they know this very well, that the CE marking doesn’t really make a product safe, because NO products are ever tested for safety by the EU.

Someone in China clearly sees this as a joke, so they created the (C)hina (E)export logo, just to make fun of the absurd reality of the self-certifying symbol.

Deception on top of an illusion

We can’t be sure of any product’s safety, it’s a matter of; do we trust the company or not. Does the company have high morality or are they just focused on making a lot of money and eliminating expenses to a ‘sort of unnecessary quality test’?

Sure any company that focuses on money, would like to minimize the risk of an economical penalty from the EU. If they haven’t checked the products’ safety well enough, they take it off the market and possibly do anything to silence the person who may or may not have suffered health issues.

At one of my jobs, we got a gift purchased from IKEA – a Plastic coffee mug. About 3 weeks later, we were informed that the product has been taken off the market because of health risks. The mug had the CE mark at the bottom.

Well, it actually didn’t have the CE logo (I remembered wrong..) it just had the international Wine & Fork logo which indicates the product is “Food & drinking safe” Whooopsie…
(Proved to be a useful thing that I don’t drink coffee and therefore haven’t discarded the plastic wrap).

What about the manufacturing certifications for ethically manufactured? As I said, I haven’t dived into all the certificates for all materials and products, but one thing I find again and again is that the certifying institution makes an appointment with the company once a year. This makes it a lot easier for companies to know exactly when they have to “clean up” their manufacturing process and when the certification is given to the manufacturer, things can go back to their normal less expensive more harmful practices.

One of my previous colleagues that have been dealing with Quality Control for decades about imported products from other businesses said: “Everyone can get certified and verified, but once the large-scale manufacturing starts, the quality drops”.
Read more about that story here in the blog post: “Are Businessmen Criminals?”

Hope you found it insightful, as always the insider whistleblower is at your service,
Eggsy was here.

If you don’t want to invest your time in decoding a product’s certifications, just choose a company that gives back more than it takes. (I know there is few to choose from, I’m working on that, my friend) – Have a nice day after all!

How do I know if our products meet the quality guidelines? Read about it here.