Acorn Inspection Bodies

A system of independent inspection is central to providing recognition that an organisation has met the requirements of a particular Phase and continues to improve its environmental performance.

Accreditation of the Acorn Inspection Bodies is undertaken by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), who also accredit the ISO14001 certification bodies & EMAS verifiers in the UK. This helps to emphasise the credibility of the scheme and provides reassurance to participants and their customers.

Acorn Inspection Bodies:
Click each the box for further information & contact details:

Acorn Inspection Bodies operate under a contract with the IEMA and conduct inspections based on the audit process specified in International Standard ISO 19011:2002.

Acorn Inspectors will issue reports on completion of each inspection visit. Inspection reports contain the following information:

1. The name and contact details of the organisation and the Acorn Inspection Body
2. The scope of the inspection
3. The phases of BS 8555 against which the organisation has been inspected
4. Which of the stage profile and achievement criteria have been met and which, if any, of the stage profile and achievement criteria have not been met.
5. Observations regarding the organisation’s environmental performance, in particular the relevance and applicability of the environmental performance indicators and the organisation’s performance relating to these.

For inspections undertaken for Phase 2 (Identifying and Ensuring Compliance with Legal and Other Requirements) and subsequent Phases, an annex to the Acorn Inspection Report may be added at the request of the participating organisation, and be validated by the inspector. The information included in the Annex must be environment-specific, and may relate to the performance of the organisation or relate to its activities, products and/or services. The aim of this is to facilitate organisations producing credible environmental information for interested parties, in particular for use in supply chains.

Organisations that are successful will be issued with an IEMA Acorn certificate and will need to be re-inspected every 12 months in order to maintain a valid certificate. Organisations that are issued with a certificate will also be entered onto the IEMA Acorn register.

Organisations have flexibility in how they choose to participate in the scheme and can deploy the Acorn Inspection Body in a variety of ways:

• Phase by phase inspection, i.e. an inspection after completing each phase
• Multi-phase inspection, where 2 or more phases are inspected at the same time
• The option to remain at any phase indefinitely, subject to annual re-inspection and demonstrating continual environmental performance improvement

More details on the Acorn Inspection Process, including the criteria required to become an accredited Acorn Inspection Body, can be found in the Acorn Recognition Scheme – Guidelines File 'docs/Acorn Recognition Scheme - Guidelines [1' not found.pdf]