Within the context of REACH, the European Commission has initiated REACH Implementation Projects (RIPs) with the intention of developing tools and guidance for the new legislation. REACH Implementation Project No. 3 covers a suite of individual projects all aimed at developing guidance for industry on various aspects of REACH. Under the RIP 3.8, a first draft guidance document on requirements for substances in articles was developed by May 2006.

　　That report was developed by a consortium co-ordinated by DHI Water & Environment (main contractor) and carried out by experts from DHI Water & Environment; Danish Toxicology Centre;Ökopol GmbH; Umweltbundesamt, Austria; Federal Environmental Agency, Germany; Swedish Chemicals Inspectorate; Danish Environmental Protection Agency and the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority within the time frame of May 2005 to May 2006.

　　That report has since been subject to written commenting from stakeholders and discussions by the Commission working group on practical preparations for REACH.

　　A draft update and revision of the first draft guidance document was done byÖkopol GmbH as part of a contract with the European Commission. The update was based on:

　　-The final REACH legal text.

　　-Input received from the Commission Working Group, incl. a sub-group on substances in articles

　　-Written comments received from stakeholders by AUG/SEP 2006 in response to a wide stakeholder consultation. Some of these comments have been further discussed with stakeholder resulting in additional comments since then.

　　That version (OCT 2007) was discussed during a Stakeholder Expert Group (SEG) meeting 14-15 November 2007 and made available for written comments in a wide stakeholder consultation. Comments received during the meeting and written consultation were taken into account for the current (DEC 2007) update of the draft RIP 3.8 guidance. This update was also done byÖkopol GmbH.