NFPA Journal - Summer 2024 - 11

NEWS FROM NFPA
AND BEYOND
in announcing NFPA Global Solutions and its first
business line, NFPA Global Advisors, two days after
the Baltimore incident. The new companies, he said,
" allow us to further advance the NFPA mission and
support our customers and stakeholders to enhance
fire, life, and electrical safety. "
NFPA Global Solutions is a venture unique from
anything NFPA has undertaken since its founding in
1896. Despite being fully owned by NFPA, NFPA Global
Solutions will operate as an independent, for-profit
company with its own board, staff, and balance sheets.
Among other things, the company will offer services
around testing, inspection, certification, and
verification. Such services " are a $250 billion market
today across many different industries and geographies
around the world, and we believe we have a
role to play in that market, " said Carlos Correia, who
will serve as president of NFPA Global Solutions.
" We have a bold ambition fully supported by the
NFPA board of directors. "
Correia, who served as NFPA's vice president of
strategic initiatives and was previously a vice president
and general manager at UL, said NFPA Global
Solutions will function as an umbrella company
that will eventually include an array of enterprises.
Those ventures can range from the launch of new
businesses to the acquisition of established companies
working in the fire, life, and electrical safety
space. NFPA Global Solutions is actively pursuing
opportunities on both fronts right now, Correia said.
" We are looking to acquire companies that have
similar values of integrity, science, and expertise in
helping our stakeholders do their jobs better, " Correia
said in an interview in April. " How fast we ultimately
grow will be a function of the value that we will provide
to the customers. The more value you bring to
the customer, the stakeholders, the more people want
to do business with you and the more we will grow
the business and advance the mission. "
NFPA Global Solutions' distinction as a for-profit
company is key to opening several doors that have
been closed to NFPA since its founding. The new
company is, for instance, free to provide an array
of advisory, digital, and compliance services that
are needed in the marketplace but have been off
limits to NFPA due to its status as a charitable
organization, said Pauley, who will serve as the new
company's board chair.
" We get asked by people all the time, 'Look, I have
this product that we believe is NFPA standards compliant,
and I need you to certify that compliance.'
We can't do that, but NFPA Global Solutions may be
able to do that in the future, " Pauley said.
Other product lines, including new digital tools
" It is clear in today's standards
world that simply being a
standards developer is not enough.
Diversification is important to the
long-term strategy of NFPA. "
to help enforcers and other stakeholders do their
jobs more efficiently, are also being developed under
the auspices of NFPA Global Solutions and will be
announced in the near future, Pauley and Correia said.
Over the past decade, a number of nonprofit standards
developers have spun off for-profit businesses.
Some have launched entire families of businesses under
the parent organization to provide advisory and other
services related to the codes and standards they develop.
" Things are changing, and as a matter of fact,
I would say that in the standards development
landscape we're probably farther behind at doing
this, " Pauley said. " Most other standards developers
already offer other services under different parts of
their structures besides just doing standards development.
We need to be able to diversify across sets
of things that make sense for the NFPA umbrella
overall-what I like to call the NFPA enterprises. "
Market demands and customer needs for the types
of services that NFPA Global Solutions will provide
are a large part of what drove the decision to launch
a for-profit entity, Pauley said. Another driver is the
uncertainty caused by special interest groups that are
challenging standards developers' intellectual property
rights and the business model that has sustained
these safety organizations for more than a century.
" It is clear in today's standards world that simply
being a standards developer is not enough, " Pauley
said. " Diversification across those enterprises is
important to the long-term strategy of NFPA. This
move is important for us to continue our quest to
save lives and protect property for the next 127 years. "
NFPA Global Advisors
While NFPA Global Solutions is large and multifaceted
in its aims, NFPA Global Advisors has a more
straightforward mission: to help governments, and
even companies, achieve higher levels of safety in
their jurisdictions through implementing the NFPA
Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem™
.
NFPA launched the concept of the safety ecosystem
in 2018 on the premise that various aspects
of safety-use of codes and standards, an informed
public, and government responsibility, to name a
few-are interconnected and must work effectively
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NFPA Journal - Summer 2024

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