China Environmental Labelling Program (CELP)

china environmental labeling

China Environmental Labelling Program (CELP) is a third-party certification which was launched by CEC (China Environmental United Certification Centre) as early as 1993. It then joined Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN) in 2008. Based on ISO 14024 standard, CELP is a type I ‘leadership certification’ aiming to promote green purchase and hence green manufacturing in China. Until 2021, as many as 50 product categories have been put into the CELP catalogue, covering a number of industry sectors such as automobile, electrical and electronic, construction, textile, packaging, printing, chemicals, etc.

Since it is voluntary, no custom clearance issues in connection with CELP certification will be likely to happen when you export your products into the general market of China. But when it comes to certain market sectors, CELP certification will empower your products to have competitive advantages in the aspect of environmental performance.

  • Government procurement

Products certified with CELP, if falling into the product categories in CELP catalogue, will have priority over non-certified products when competing in government procurement projects. More and more product categories have been included in the catalogue of China government procurement products for environmental labeling products, such as office equipment and consumables, automobiles, electronics and household appliances, furniture and building materials, etc.  Here is the non-exhausted list:

    • Computers
    • Printers
    • LED displays
    • Scanners
    • Projectors
    • Multi-function Units
    • Photocopiers
    • Automobiles
    • Electric Water Heaters
    • Televisions
    • Furniture (beds, tables, chairs, sofas, cupboards, etc.)
    • Sinks
    • Water Pans
    • Textile fabrics and dyeing materials
    • Paper products
    • Toner cartridge
    • Construction Materials (particle board, cement, ceramic mosaic tile, plasterboard, wall paint, etc.)
  • Bid in business market

As far as business-to-business market is concerned, some specific requirements from customers, though not legally compulsory, might act as determinant factors in screening potential suppliers. Environmental performance in many cases is one of those specific requirements amid growing concerns of environment degradation in China. With CELP certification, it comes easily to demonstrate the distinguished environmental performance of your products.

Conformity assessment scheme for INITIAL CELP certification consists of activities illustrated in the following diagram. CELP assesses a variety of aspects impacting product environmental performance, including hazardous substance, recycling, energy efficiency (when applicable), environmental management system, etc. So CELP is quite comprehensive and complicated. Certrip urges every applicant pursue professional guidance when any questions come up. For foreign applicants, various obstacles could arise because:

  • local representative is necessary to help stay close relationship with certification body and testing lab.
  • official documents, e.g. certification rules, technical criteria and testing specification are all written in Chinese.
  • Chinese is required when preparing application documents and communicating with certification body as well as testing lab.

By taking the service offered by Certrip, you will be completely released from the burdensome communication job and have a specialist working on your behalf in China to actively manage your certification process. Furthermore, a life-cycle service is available on request to have you completely covered throughout the whole life of CELP certification including surveillance and re-assessment process afterwards.

China CELP process

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CELP certification is applicable to a number of product items, as introduced in tab ‘what’. Certrip has prepared a full list of CELP catalogue (updated 2021) as shown below.

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