Cosmos certified products expected summer 2010
The development of the standards, the product of negotiations between six European certification bodies (Soil Association, Ecocert, BDIH, Bioforum, Cosmebio and ICEA), has suffered a number of delays and setbacks.
Finalised standard published
However, the finalised standard which has been accepted by all members was officially published in February of this year. The organisations now need to form an international association that will oversee the standards before certification can begin.
This international association will come into existence early April and will control and monitor the standard as well as taking care of the marketing and promotion, explained Martyn Cole, from UK body the Soil Association.
Previous estimates put the arrival of the first Cosmos certified products on the market for spring 2010 but according to Cole, although possible, this is looking unlikely.
“The reality for Cosmos-certified products is more like summer, as people have to develop logos and labels. It takes time to get people through the certification process,” he told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com.
From the inception of the international association in April, those already certified to the Soil Association’s organic standard will have five years to change to Cosmos certification.
This period was extended from four years in order to give manufacturers more time to comply with the standard.
“Some of the things we were asking our members to do, such as source 30 per cent of chemically processed agro-ingredients like emulsifiers and surfactants from organic sources, appeared to be quite a tough proposition in 36 months,” he said.
Competing standards
Cosmos was originally conceived as a way to harmonise the many European standards on the market, but it is not the only standard available. Brussels-based NaTrue was formed by a number of organisations frustrated by the slow progress of Cosmos negotiations and has been making ground in the US with equivalency agreements.
The first products to be certified to the US standard NSF/ANSI 305 have now hit the market and through an equivalency agreement these products can gain NaTrue certification in Europe.
Asked whether the NaTrue standard was deemed a threat to Cosmos, Cole said he did not feel either standard would push the other out of the market.
“Obviously NaTrue has its own ambitions for its standard as we do for Cosmos. But, their ultimate ambition is similar to ours, to form some sort of understanding over what organic and natural means for the consumer. There is more crossover between the two organisations than has been acknowledged in the past.”
“We will have to look at where the ambitions for the other existing standards in the marketplace complement ours,” he added.
