Certification accrediting organizations

Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation—APLAC) and Africa (Southern African Development Community in Accreditation—SADAC). Through these cooperations the importance of harmonization and conformity has been recognized. If countries adopt similar approaches to accreditation, and their accreditation organizations issue certificates with a harmonized information, it is much easier for clients to assess the validity of test results relating to cross-border trade, forensics, and health. 

Facilitate equivalence with international guidelines for organic certification, accreditation and labelling in order to encourage local, regional, and international trade in organic products. ... 

Finally, there is an accreditation process for social accountability audits under Social Accountability, Inc. This entity accredits organizations - known as certification bodies - to conduct audits, certifying workplaces as complying with SA8000. Accreditation must be earned before a firm can have its staff perform SA8000 certification audits (SAI, 2004). 

ISO certification is carried out by accredited organizations known as registrars. Registrars review the organization s quality manual and audit the process to ensure that the system documented in the manual is in place and effective. When an organization receives ISO 9000 certification,... 

By definition, accreditation in the safety (certification) field is the process of independently assuring a certification meets a minimum set of national standards. The standards go beyond technical requirements and ensure that the examination is fair, properly developed, and administrated. Tables 25-2 and 25-3 provide information about accrediting organizations and the approximate number of safety and health, environmental, and ergonomics certification programs that are accredited. 

Another U.S. certification organization is the Council of Engineering and Scientific Certification Boards (CESB). This organization also sets standards and awards accreditation for individual certifications. The organization limits its participation to engineering, science, and related domains. 

A significant number of certifications are available in the safety, health and environmental domains of practice. Table 2-4 lists a few of the important certifications. Refer to the current listing of each accreditation organization to find accredited certifications and their organizations. 

VPP states, in a section titled Certified Professional Resources, that Access to certitied safety and health professionals and other licensed health care professionals is required. They may be provided by offsite sources such as corporate headquarters, insurance companies, or private contractors. OSHA will accept certification from any recognized accrediting organization. ... 

Most people in industry are, by now, well aware of the certification framework for ISO 9001. UKAS (The United Kingdom Accreditation Service) accredits organizations to be able to certify clients to ISO 9001. 

In many countries, there is no law prohibiting an organization setting up as either an accreditation body or a certification body. 

In many countries, both accreditation and certification bodies are commercial organizations that operate without government funding and therefore they are governed by supply and demand. 

Primary stroke center certification guide. Oakbrook, IL Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations 2005. 

Darnhofer I and Vogl CR (2002), Certification and accreditation of organics in Austria implementation, strengths and weaknesses , in Ecolabels and the Greening of the Food Market, Tufts University Boston. 

This chapter aims to illustrate the role and importance of ethical (fair) trade in the agricultural production chain. Towards that, we will initially analyse the organic market and will illustrate the role of the accreditation schemes and the local certification bodies. This is followed by a section on ethical (fair) trade discussing the evolution of the concept(s) and their association with organic production. The last sections examine the view of the stakeholders and selected supply chain members in relation to ethical (fair) trade, before drawing relevant conclusions. 

Unlike the IFOAM accreditation program, government-run conformity assessment systems mainly operate at a national level, with no multilateral arrangements in place to facilitate trade of organically certified products recognised by one country into a second country. This has led to a situation in which a certification body operating in one country needs to obtain accreditation after accreditation to enable the products that it certifies to enter into multiple markets as organic. 

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