[3][4] This accreditation verifies that CSA is competent to carry out standards development and certification functions, and is based on internationally recognised criteria and procedures.

[5] The CSA registered mark shows that a product has been independently tested and certified to meet recognized standards for safety or performance.

[2] At the beginning, they attended to specific needs: aircraft parts, bridges, building construction, electrical work, and wire rope.

[7] In the 1950s, CSA established international alliances in Britain, Japan, and the Netherlands, to expand its scope in testing and certification.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the CSA began to expand its involvement in consumer standards, including bicycles, credit cards, and child resistant packaging for drugs.

They are an alternative to the ISO 9001 quality management standard, specific to companies supplying goods to nuclear power plants.

[citation needed] Laws in many jurisdictions in North America require that certain products be tested for standards compliance by a body officially recognized for that purpose.

CSA Group is accredited to do so in a variety of areas by the SCC[11] in Canada and OSHA[12] in the United States (as a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory).