A Compliance certificate is a regulatory compliance document issued by the Corporate HSE/PRA-PS entity at the request of the Business or by the GBU itself.

The aim is to respond appropriately to forms and questionnaires provided by customers concerning products placed on the market by SOLVAY.

Two categories of certificates are available:

• the " Regulatory Statement " which makes reference to a regulatory context;
• the " Voluntary Declaration " which is issued in the absence of a regulatory context and which relates essentially to the manufacturing process.

The geographical scope comprises only the European Union and some national legislations from EU Member States (e.g. FR, BE, DE, IT) for the moment.
In the future, following demands from GBUs, the scope could be extended to include the creation of certificates for China.

There are currently 6000 certificates available via SINEQUA.

Around 175 regulatory topics are currently managed via Regulatory Statements. Around 110 topics are covered by Voluntary Declarations.

Since EU legislation is constantly evolving (including emerging regulations on important issues such as nanomaterials, endocrine disruptors, microplastics, etc.), the number of certificates is constantly growing.

A Compliance certificate is a kind of guarantee, delimited by managing the content of the certificate: SOLVAY can only guarantee what it is able to control. Therefore, analytical results and/or detailed information on the raw materials purchased/used, are sometimes required.

The issuing of a Regulatory Statement or a Voluntary Declaration is proof that the product complies with the relevant EU legislation.

The phrases used in customer forms or questionnaires are reworded to avoid inappropriate responses to customers for which SOLVAY may be held liable.

The text of the certificate is divided in three parts:

• Declaration: Short description of the manufacturing process, origin of the raw materials (mineral, vegetal, … or presence of vegetal / animal additives, etc.), intended uses to avoid misuses (example: a technical grade sold for food applications!) and mention of the Legal Entity placing the product on the market.
• Context: Explanation of the regulatory context by mentioning the references to the relevant legislation(s) and the important articles or annexes.
• Conformity: Declaration on the conformity of the product with regard to the application (characterization of the product, inclusion in a positive list, absence of undesirable substances in the product, good manufacturing practices, etc.).

Certificate functionalities in SAP EH&S use the same solution as the one applied for SDS (Safety Data Sheet) or RDS (Regulatory Data Summary).

Regulatory Statement and Voluntary Declaration data are maintained with phrases in SAP EH&S and certificate documents are generated in WP1.

A dedicated Property tree, Data model, Phrase library and Document variants are available and accessible based on a specific authorization role.

Certificates Data Model

Specification type

PROD_COM: Specification type used to maintain all information for the commercial product.

ZCERT_ADDR: Specification type for the management of certificates and all information relative to each certificate document, such as: Legal entity, address, validity restriction and version number.

Certificate type

Several types of certificates are implemented in SAP EH&S, based on the same template.

The key elements to define a type of certificate in SAP EH&S are the Certificate type, the Version type and the Rating (Usage).

Examples of Certificate types:

• EU-GMO (Regulatory Statement: Genetically Modified Organisms)
• EU-FAL (Regulatory Statement: Food Allergy and Intolerance)
• EU-TSE (Regulatory Statement: Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies)
• VD-MPRO20 (Voluntary Declaration: Manufacturing Process - Nitrosamines)

Please refer to SINEQUA to see the list of Certificate types currently available per GBU.

Phrase Management for Certificates

A passive library named ZCERT is available for certificate phrases only.

Certificate phrases are currently only available in English.