Technical regulations affect everyone, from manufacturers to consumers. Firstly, they protect consumers from products that fail to meet essential requirements. Secondly, they provide a level playing-field for all businesses by ensuring no company can gain an advantage through low-quality or potentially dangerous products.

These technical regulations are based on formal standards and enforced by governments. In effect, they determine whether a product can be sold on a particular national or regional market. The standards set out essential requirements in areas such as safety, interoperability, environmental impact and electrical interference. If a product does not meet these requirements, it cannot be sold.

Formal standards are defined by national, regional and international standards development bodies, drawing on input from numerous member organizations.

Balancing everyone’s interests
Ideally, formal standards and regulations should give consumers maximum protection without restricting innovation. This way, businesses can get to market fast and optimize the cost, functionality and attractiveness of their products.

Balancing all these interests often involves compromise. For example, manufacturers may be required to use more expensive materials or processes to ensure that a product is environmentally friendly.

The role of businesses
All businesses need to be aware of the standards and regulations that relate to their activities. And they must ensure they are taken into account during the development, manufacture and sale of their products or services.

Many companies, like Philips, want to go further and actively contribute to the development of formal standards. To do this, we participate in industry associations, standards development bodies and public administrations, such as:

● the International Engineering Consortium (IEC)
● the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC)
● the Industry Cooperation on Standards and Conformity Assessment (ICSCA)

These activities give us a clearer understanding of the formal standards and regulations relevant to our business, which supports our own growth. They also give us the opportunity to speak up for the interests of industry and its customers – leading to regulations that benefit consumers and businesses alike.