Latest news from Kiwa

At Kiwa, we have extensive experience providing GLOBALG.A.P. IFA – Integrated Farm Assurance certification. Amongst others, we offer certification for IFA v6-Smart and IFA v6-GFS standards. Starting in January 2025, both versions will be valid in parallel. While meeting the standard owner’s requirements may present challenges for producers, achieving certification through Kiwa opens doors to expanded markets for vegetables and fruits across Europe and beyond.

As of January 6, 2025, Wim van Loon will be appointed Managing Director of Kiwa Nederland. Kiwa operates globally in the TIC sector (Testing, Inspection, and Certification), with Kiwa Nederland being one of the group’s largest entities. Van Loon (58) has held senior leadership roles throughout his career in the TIC industry. In his new role, Wim Van Loon will report directly to Nicolas Kyndt, COO EMEA and member of Kiwa's Management Board.

Kiwa has extended its successful collaboration with the Royal Dutch Rowing Federation (KNRB) for another two years. Since 1992, Kiwa has supported the Dutch rowing team, and the Kiwa logo will continue to feature prominently on the boats of TeamNL Rowing as they prepare for the 2026 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam.

Today, we celebrate World Quality Day 2024, a global initiative organized by the Chartered Quality Institute, dedicated to championing excellent quality management. This year’s theme is ‘Quality: from compliance to performance’. Here to tell us more is Eugène den Elzen, Quality Manager at Kiwa’s Corporate Services.

In architecture, the focus often lies on aesthetics, innovation and quality. However, safety also plays a significant role in this field. For Utrecht-based Zecc Architects, safety is an integral part of the company culture, both in terms of social safety in the office and safety on construction sites. Kiwa recently awarded Zecc Architects a Step 2 Safety Culture Ladder for their safety endeavors. Mario van Kooij, Zecc's associate project leader-architect, elaborates on this achievement.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) took a historic step on 23 February 2024, by incorporating climate change into a wide range of management system standards. This means that climate change is now a mandatory component of no less than 31 system standards, including ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001, and ISO 50001. The changes took effect immediately upon publication.

The Safety Culture Ladder (SCL) is being increasingly utilized by organizations as a tool to measure and promote safety awareness. The SCL originated in the Dutch railway sector but is now being internationally employed by a wide range of organizations. This broader application prompted a revision of the SCL handbook and certification scheme, resulting in the introduction of Safety Culture Ladder 2.0, which has been in effect since the beginning of this year.

As an authority in energy and water distribution, Kiwa has been involved in testing and certifying materials used in gas, water and other pipeline systems for years. Kiwa's material experts have accumulated a wealth of experience, utilized in residual lifetime and failure assessments, resulting in a well-equipped material research laboratory that serves the entire energy and water sector.

Cooll Sustainable Energy Solutions, a Dutch specialist in innovative, sustainable heating solutions, recently received the CE GAR certificate from Kiwa for its SuperHybrid gas heat pump. This marks a significant milestone for the young company, which utilizes advanced gas adsorption technology in the SuperHybrid.

An exciting sport year lies ahead! With the Paris Olympics in sight, Kiwa is gearing up to support the Dutch rowing athletes on their journey to France. Upcoming competitive training sessions, important for the Olympic crew formations, will take place on December 15, 19, and 22.

Important news for independent auto, damage repair and motorhome companies: SERMI certification, mandatory for theft prevention-related software and vehicle parts, takes effect in the Netherlands on April 1, 2024. You will are able to easily and quickly start your certification online with Kiwa.

This month marks the start of the third phase of the public-private hydrogen research program HyDelta. HyDelta 3 focuses on the economic and technical integration of hydrogen gas into the national gas transportation and distribution system. As part of the HyDelta consortium, Kiwa is taking on a significant number of work packages within HyDelta 3.

Cybersecurity remains a hot topic, not only due to the continuously increasing number of hacks and ransomware attacks but also from the perspective of regulators and the evolving legal framework in this field. Europe is on the verge of introducing new cybersecurity guidelines: the Network and Information Security Directive 2 (NIS2).

There is now a European version of the revised standard for information security management systems ISO/IEC 27001 that was updated last year. This European version is identical to the global version, with the addition of a European preface.

The Dutch Red Cross (het Nederlandse Rode Kruis, NRK) and Kiwa have recently agreed upon a collaboration regarding the assessment of First Aid training programs. As part of this initiative, Kiwa conducts audits during First Aid courses at various locations.

The recent revision of ISO 27001:2022 has led to changes and new opportunities for organizations involved in information security. We asked Marjolein Veenstra, Kiwa's scheme manager for ISO 27001, to delve deeper into the implications and benefits of this revision.