Update process
 

What does IEC do to ensure that this database is up to date?

IEC has established a process for IEC National Committees to submit Change Requests (CRs) to keep the IEC 62474 database up-to-date per IEC 62474 clause 7.  This includes a screening of known national substance regulations within IEC member countries.

 

Which substances are included in the IEC database?

The general principle for a substance to be included on the database as a declarable substance is:

  • To identify existing national laws or regulations in an IEC member country that are relevant to electrotechnial products that prohibit or restrict substances, or that have a labeling, communication, reporting or notification requirement.
  • For substances that may be contained in electrotechnical products, apply the criteria established in the IEC 62474 International Standard, and include those substances that meet these criteria.  Substances not meeting these criteria are not included in the IEC 62474 database.  See decision process below.

For details, see IEC 62474 subclause 5.2 Table 1.

 

What is the decision process?

Substances are assessed based on the criteria established in IEC 62474, clause 5.  The basic process is to ask if a given substance or substance group remains in products; then to determine if there are known uses applicable to electrotechnical products.  The approach is conservative, which means that the Validation Team must be confident that for all relevant applications, that the substance will not remain in products above the reporting threshold in order for the substance to be screened out.  At the end of the decision process,

  • Substances meeting the criteria are added to the IEC 62474 database
  • Substances not meeting the criteria are not added to the IEC 62474 database

 

Who is deciding?

An International Validation Team was established to review Change Requests (CRs) and determine which changes should be made based on the criteria specified in IEC 62474. The Validation Team is made up of chemical and electronic industry regulations experts who are nominated by their National Committees.

 

How does IEC handle unique issues associated with the EU REACH Candidate List?

For EU REACH, where substances are frequently added to the candidate list with little or no implementation transition period, the Validation Team will perform proactive assessment of substances to help keep the list of declarable substances as up-to-date as possible.  At the present time, each SVHC (Substances of Very High Concern) undergoes proactive assessment once it is on the EU Consultation List.  A substance that is added to the SVHC Registry of Intentions (ROI) may also be considered if the substance entry is properly formulated with sufficient information to perform the assessment.  See "What is the decision process?” above. IEC Validation Team 62474 has created a complementary list of substances and substance groups contained in the EU REACH Candidate list that were reviewed and not included in the IEC 62474 database. This list is available on the "Supplementary Lists and Information" Tab, and includes the reason why such substances and substance groups are not currently included in the IEC 62474 database. A hyperlink to the complemenatary list  is provided here: IEC 62474 Complementary List   An important value of the IEC 62474 Declarable Substance List (DSL) is that it includes only the EU SVHCs that the VT has researched and concluded are expected to possibly be contained in electrotechnical equipment, so that users do not have to do this screening.