On December 22, 2023, China’s National Certification and Accreditation Administration (CNCA) released the revised version of the General Rules for Implementing the Green Building Materials Products Grading Certification (hereinafter referred to as the General Rules). The General Rules, which came into force on January 1, 2024, are an upgrade of the previous version issued by CNCA in 2020.
In addition to editorial changes (such as minor corrections, alignment of wording used, refining of descriptions), the General Rules incorporate the Green Building Materials Products Grading Certification Catalogue (first batch) and the Referenced Standards (attached in the document as Annex 1). All the referenced standards are association standards developed by the China Association for Engineering Construction Standardization (CECS), and were released in 2019.
In the main body part, the major changes introduced by the General Rules include:
- Clarifying the relationship between the General Rules and the detailed implementation rules.In the foreword section, it is specifically required that certification bodies develop detailed implementation rules based on the General Rules and applicable evaluation standards. The certification process shall follow the instructions of both the General Rules and the detailed implementation rules.
- Specifying test report requirementsfor products exempt from type-inspection requirement (Clause 6.1). According to the General Rules, even if type-inspection is not required, a valid test report should be included as a part of the certification application documents. The detailed implementation rules will further determine the specific testing items and test cycles.
- Increasing flexibility regarding the requirements for audit days.In the General Rules, the number of audit days are specified for various certification activities, including materials review, on-site factory inspection, and surveillance inspection. All those requirements have been modified in the new version with increased flexibility. For instance, clause 7.1.2.2 has deleted the compulsory requirement for the increase rate of the audit days, instead only indicating that the total number of audit days generally shall not exceed three, while leaving to the discretion of involved parties the eventuality of increased rates.
- Deleting therequirement for the green evaluation conformity verification (Clause 7.2.4). The General Rules have deleted the enumeration of the on-site factory inspection items regarding the real internal control operation, including items of involved documents, records, products, personnel, equipment, etc.
- Modifying the compulsory surveillance inspection items for factory’s quality assurance ability (Clause 10.2.1).The compulsory items of design/development, verification inspection, as well as testing devices and equipment inspection have been deleted, while the green building materials certificate and mark become the mandatory item
- Streamlining the requirements for the alteration of certification scope.The supplementary inspection items have been deleted, these are expected to be determined by the implementation detailed rules.
In the next steps, the relevant certification bodies shall, according to the current General Rules, revise their detailed implementation rules of the certification of the corresponding products, and file a record with the CNCA. In addition, from January 1, 2024, the certification body shall accept the certification application and carry out certification in accordance with the requirements of the General Rules and the implementation rules. Certification certificates that had been issued before January 1, 2024, can continue to be used until their expiration, or until changes occur in terms of product, standards of relevancy, or until follow-up surveillance is carried out.
