Private, additional certifications

Apart from the legal requirements of EEC regulation, suppliers of organic products, depending on the final market destination, often have to fulfil 

A scheme that was initiated by a Dutch organic importer, Eosta B V, deserves special mention. In its Nature More scheme, products are scored in terms of compliance with organic, health and environmental standards. This is done as an add-on to the organic certification process. By entering a code that is on the product label, the consumer can see how the product he or she purchased scores. It is a communication tool that links the farmers to the consumers. 

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In terms of criteria for the approval of private certification bodies, the EU regulation requires compliance to Annex 3 of the regulation in addition to ISO/IEC Guide 65. Annex 3 contains requirements not included in ISO Guide 65 such as parallel production. This format is similar to the IFOAM system with specific accreditation criteria that are not covered in the ISO guide. The USA and Japan have each developed distinct requirements. Beyond this, some countries such as India and Australia (in draft requirements) have chosen to base their criteria on IFOAMs (Commins 2003). 

Network of the Rainforest Alliance (SAN), and the ILO. All IO AS-accredited certification bodies are expected to develop their own social standards based on these broad IFOAM standards for standards. Some private organic standards (lOAS accredited or not) already incorporate social standards into their certification. Often producer associations or cooperatives in developing countries are subject to social certification via fair trade in addition to their organic certification (SASA 2005). 

Additionally, all the content to which ownership has been transferred to a person, for example by purchase, also becomes personal content. For example, a digital certificate issued by a Certification Authority, and purchased by the person, becomes personal content as it contains a public key that is bound to the person s private key. 

Thus the European policies tackling standards, certification and labelling have been quite successful in overcoming the major difficulties in developing standards and have established an efficient certification system. Although in both areas, private systems exist in addition to the European system, the European system has become the point of reference — even for those interested in stricter systems. 

In addition to REACH, a wide range of voluntary labelling systems exist as well as different tools, standards, private labels based on best practice and improvement, as opposed to law. A straightforward evaluation of the role of labels in product differentiation is not possible with the plethora of certification schemes, which is often daunting to companies wishing to address sustainability issues and frequently causes confusion and frustration in the market. 

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