Legislation

SAFETY IS OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY

Every year about 3400 product are recalled from the European market, because they did not comply with the legislation on quality, health, safety and environment. About 13% of these products are toys. Half of these toys are recalled due to chemical risks. As a retailer or school supplier, you'll want to offer your customers with safe products and prevent getting involved in complicated legal procedures. We are happy to take those worries off your hands. You can fully rely on our knowledge of and experience with legislation.  

Our products must comply with our high quality standards and the European legislation on safety, health and environment. For our products it concerns:

• European laws for chemicals (REACH EC/1907/2006)
• the Toy Safety Directive (EC/48/2009)
• the Classification, Labelling and Packaging Regulation (CLP EC/1272/2008).  

In these, limits and risks are registered, such as limits for chemicals and heavy metal in products and risks of swallowing and allergies. 

CE marking Havo products

Our products are not just regularly tested by us, but by independent certified laboratories as well. This way, we can guarantee that our products always comply with the regulations. The CE marking on the labels of our toy products, products for children under the age of 14, confirms that. The Safety data sheets and CE-declarations of conformity for our Creall products are available for download and give you assurance of 100% safe products. 

Havo membership

We are affiliated with the European Toy Safety Committee and the CEPE, the European Council of the Paint, Printing Ink and Artists’ Colours Industry. The CEPE is a branch organisation that represents hundreds of European companies. The CEPE is an active member of working groups that the European Commission organises to advise on European policies and legislation. At the moment, they are working on things like the availability of safe preservatives within the EU. You can read about this in the document ‘CEPE Position paper: coatings need preservatives’ below. 

We are proud to be an active member of the CEPE. We take part in many of the workgroups and offer our input on matters related to product safety, health and the environment. This way, Havo is always completely up to date with the latest regulations.

We have become a member of Sedex. This is an international platform for social and ethical compliance (ESG - Environmental Social Governance). In 2024, we were audited according to SMETA (Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit). The audit revealed that our work environment is overall healthy and safe.

Quality management

The safety of a product is closely related to the quality of a product. How can we guarantee high quality products? First of all, we are ISO 9001 certified. ISO 9001 is the international standard for quality management systems. This certificate confirms that our company processes are in good order. This means that we can use a reliable process to supply products that comply with the requirements of our customers and the relevant laws and regulations. Would you like to know more? Download and read our quality management statement below.

Regulatory affairs downloads
Quality management system
Code of conduct
CEPE Position paper: coatings need preservatives
RA white paper - bringing safe creative materials to market