ANSI Issues Accreditations Under New Greenhouse Gas Program
The American National Standards Institute, coordinator of the U.S. standards and conformity assessment system, announced that seven organizations have been accredited under a new program that facilitates the inventory and reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) from the environment. The seven validation and/or verification bodies (VVBs) are the first to be recognized under the ANSI pilot accreditation program that was launched in February 2008.
With a growing global awareness of the need for environmental protection and sustainability, organizations are eager to demonstrate their efforts to inventory, report, and reduce GHG emissions, ANSI said. In order to assure the credibility of their claims, many of these organizations are turning to third-party bodies to validate and verify emission assertions.
Often used interchangeably, the terms "validate" and "verify" represent two separate and distinct processes. Validation comes at the beginning of a project and lays out the framework by which emission reductions will occur. Verification assesses how an organization or project has performed its GHG inventory and reported its results against an established protocol, demonstrating the relevance, completeness, consistency, transparency, and accuracy of the emission claim.
ANSI said its accreditation enhances the credibility and value of the process by attesting to the competence and qualification of VVBs to perform these duties, offering them a significant distinction from their competitors in the marketplace.
Applicable to a broad spectrum of industries, the ANSI GHG accreditation program operates according to requirements defined in the international standards ISO 14065:2007, Greenhouse gases - Requirements for Greenhouse Gas Validation and Verification Bodies for Use in Accreditation or Other Forms of Recognition, and ISO 14064-3:2006, Greenhouse Gases – Specification with Guidance for the Validation and Verification of Greenhouse Gas Assertions.
The announcement marks the formal launch of the ANSI GHG program. Additional VVBs enrolled during the pilot program will continue in the accreditation process, and new applicants will be accepted beginning in January 2009. For more information on the ANSI Accreditation Program for Greenhouse Gas Validation/Verification Bodies, visit www.ansi.org/ghg.