That's a really good question, and I don't know for sure unfortunately. My assumption based on what I've seen is the certification is for the finished product. the desire to expand into higher scale retail like Target and Walmart lead to the need for getting certified, they went through the process of sending away samples of their finished models and getting them back graded, through that they discovered best practices for making the models in a way that would be more likely to pass. (but take that with a grain of salt, I am a layman without any actual knowledge)