Environmental Management Systems – Your A – Z guide
Accreditation
Accreditation is the basis by which an authoritative body gives formal recognition that a body or person is competent to carry out specific tasks. For organisations that provide verification, certification and inspection services; accreditation forms the third party assessment that ensures conformity with internationally recognised standards.
EN ISO/IEC 17000:2004 defines accreditation as:
“Third-party attestation related to a conformity assessment body conveying formal demonstration of its competence to carry out specific conformity assessment tasks”.
The primary purpose of accreditation is to ensure that certification/registration bodies are subject to oversight by an authoritative body. Accreditation reduces risk and provides assurance for government, business and customers by ensuring, through regular surveillance, that certification/registration bodies are both independent and competent.
The roles of the key EMS accreditation bodies are given below. Please click the links to find out more.
Introductory Level
Schemes Quick Links
Practitioner Information
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