Elena Dumitru from ENplus® reflects on the past year and shares what’s ahead for the scheme

The year is coming slowly to its end which is the best moment for a retrospection. We are ready to look back but also ahead with the last interview for 2024 which is with the Certification Director at the ENplus^® Head Office – Elena Dumitru.

Dear Elena, the pellet market has been marked by a certain level of unpredictability and doubt for a few dynamic years. How did this affect the certification scheme?

I believe in these market conditions certification is even more relevant since people are looking for stability, guarantees or support. ENplus^® certification has been on the market for almost 15 years now showing a quite stable growth, continuing to improve the quality of the pellets and to provide information and tools on how to best identify certified pellets.

The certified production this year is expected to surpass 14,5 million tonnes with an increasing demand from outside Europe. The total number of certified companies is now at 1300, with several ongoing applications from new companies wanting to get certified as well. Trademark protection remains high in our objectives and a lot of work is being put into this task where more than 200 such cases have been closed this year.

Along the year we have also welcomed 2 new certification bodies that will help us in providing even more opportunities for the certified companies in choosing their conformity assessment bodies.

Therefore, I can state that our certification scheme has kept its importance and even strengthen its reach in these dynamic years concerning the pellet market.

The ENplus^® certification was revised 2 years ago. How do you evaluate the transition period?

The latest revision of the scheme considered the feedback of an extensive range of stakeholders and aimed to adapt even further to the market needs and its actors, but also to improve the different aspects of the scheme’s management.

The transition for the main requirements has been set at 1 year and in some specific cases to an even longer period to give the chance to all stakeholders to put everything needed in place for complying with the new set of requirements. A lot of efforts have been put into communicating all the new changes through events like workshops/ trainings/ webinars and through different supporting documents (templates, list of changes, brochure, etc.) for ensuring a proper understanding of the actions that each stakeholder had to take to align with the latest requirements but also to prepare the ones joining the scheme.

Two years after the launch, all companies have been already evaluated according to the revised requirements and had to prove compliance with the changes. The nature of the changes brought by the revision also facilitated the possibility of achieving this compliance. For example, clearer and better targeted requirements, better explained self-monitoring frequency and parameters, improved description of the usage of the trademark, or the possibility to access and store in one place all documents regarding the certification. The last became possible with the introduction of the ENplus^® Certification Platform that now facilitates many process because of this centralization of the documentation.

There were certainly some more challenging requirements introduced, like the adding of a serial number (identifying the entity responsible for bagging the pellets, the date and site of the bagging) on the bag designs. That is also why this specific requirement had a longer transition, of 2 years, compared with the other requirements.

As usual, it’s only when you start implementing that you can see how it really works. So the transition period was also the time for putting into practice the new regulations and hence the time for identifying the provisions that might need further clarifications or amendments. These points have been collected on a continuous basis from the different stakeholders and have been addressed as a first step in the FAQ section with the purpose of creating later on documents with interpretations or guidelines.

I do believe that by now the new requirements are not new anymore and that certified companies but also the other partners working within the scheme (national partners of conformity assessment bodies) have become familiar with them and received the needed support in implementing them.

What’s next for ENplus^®?

At the moment, ENplus^® is the world leading certification scheme for the quality of wood pellets and the plan is to continue working on maintaining this reputation and on further adapting and improving the scheme.

Regarding the certification and the accreditation side of the picture, the next step for the ENplus^® scheme is to be recognized by the European Cooperation for Accreditation, for enabling the certification bodies to be evaluated specifically on the ENplus^® standards. During the revision process, the new scheme has been reorganized and rewritten with the aim of getting this recognition.

Tools like the ENplus^® mobile application are being created for supporting the end-users and professionals in the field to find out whether a company is certified or whether a company has been blacklisted for the misuse of the trademark. This application will be developed further to include a feature allowing the users to scan a bag of pellets and check if it is an ENplus^® approved bag.

As for the ENplus^® requirements, new guidance documentation/information is planned to be developed based on the needs of further clarifications or support into implementing some of these requirements.

For me it is really important that ENplus^® keeps bringing added value to certified companies regarding the quality of their product and in regard to their quality management system but also to the pellet market in general, as part of the alternative solutions for minimizing our carbon footprint.

What is your wish for 2025?

I think all pellet professionals are wishing for cold weather but I think besides that, we definitely need to continue raising awareness on the use of high-quality pellets and their potential. We still notice quite a lack of understanding on different levels, be it by the users or by the decision-makers.

I also wish for a proper framework to be put in place from the legislators to encourage people to switch to pellets.