Water Mark

Producers and suppliers of drinking water products. And indirect, drinking water companies, installers and owners of drinking water installations.

A certificate with the Kiwa Water Mark can be obtained by passing an initial audit. Important aspects of an initial audit are tests relating to the product and/or performance requirements and an assessment of the production process.

The certificate is granted for an indefinite period of validity, based on positive results of periodic audits, aimed at maintenance of the management system.

The new quality mark was introduced when the Kiwa Evaluation Guidelines for products in contact with drinking water were adapted to the extended hygienic requirements of the Dutch government. These requirements are specified in the “Materials and chemicals in the supply of drinking water and warm tap water Regulation” which was published in 2011. The extension relates to the number of criteria as well as the scope of the Regulation. For example, in addition to toxicology aspects, microbiology aspects are now included; in addition to polymers, metals are also now included.

The Kiwa Water Mark can be granted on a drinking water product as soon as the product meets the new requirements. In many cases it is necessary to translate the new requirements into acceptance criteria for that product before (re-) certification can start. As soon as the Kiwa Water Mark for a product can be granted the Kiwa Keur certficates will, after a transitional period, lose their validity.

With the introduction of the Kiwa Water Mark the term ATA, which stands for Attest Toxicological Aspects, disappears. The term ATA is replaced by "Hygienic aspects" because the new Regulation specifies, besides toxicological, also microbiological and organoleptical criteria. Furthermore Kiwa no longer issues attests on hygienic aspects only: on indication from the market as well as the government, Kiwa will only grant certificates based on Evaluation Guidelines (or Covenants*) with full requirement packages. If for a certain product (group) an Evaluation Guideline or Covenant is not yet available, it will be drawn up in co-operation between Kiwa and the market.

From January 2017 drinking water chemicals etc. are covered by a specifically drawn up Evaluation Guideline: BRL-K15003 “Evaluation Guideline for the Kiwa product certificate for products used for treatment and / or production of drinking water”.

* BRL: all parties concerned, Covenant: one or more parties concerned.

With the “Materials and chemicals in the supply of drinking water and warm tap water Regulation” coming into force in 2011, it was not clear for all products how they should be (re-)evaluated against the new requirements. Especially for assembled products, additional policy rules and related acceptance criteria had to be developed. Kiwa endeavors to feed that process with constructive and pragmatic proposals towards the government. In the mean time, the Dutch government aims to harmonize the additional policy rules with acceptance criteria in surrounding countries, especially Germany. The advantages for the market of this harmonization are obvious; this working method, however, implies that full implementation of the extended Regulation in the Netherlands takes more time. For more information about the European collaboration on harmonization, the so-called Four Member States (4MS)-initiative, click here.

With the introduction of the Kiwa Water Mark, the required way of marking the drinking water products has been changed. More information about the way of marking of the products can be found on the right-hand side.

How, during the transition period, a certficate holder must deal with products held in stock not bearing the Kiwa Water Mark is described in a memo you can find as a download on this page.