Stages of Integration into the Environmental Sustainability Control and Certification system – Inspection – Certificates

Certify Standards has issued a series of joining forms that must be completed before any business can join its audit and certification scheme, based on its standard for environmental sustainability.

Chronologically, the steps of the accession process are as follows :

• Expressions of Interest
• Application for Membership
• Assessment of Application
• Certification

Subsequently, the company is informed about the preliminary steps that it is good to follow, as a stage of preparation to carry out its initial audit.

This is followed by the on-site inspection procedure by the agency’s approved inspectors as provided by the standard.

It is divided into two parts. Its mandatory part includes the control of all fields as described in detail in the first part of this regulation.

Based on the score achieved by the inspected company, the following classification follows:

• Failure to grant a Certificate (The business did not manage to collect the necessary score to achieve the granting of a Certificate)
• BASIC class
• SILVER category
• GOLD category
• PLATINUM class

In a second, optional stage and if the company can provide extensive documentation of its actions, which affect its environmental sustainability performance, data can be collected and evaluated in the following thematic sections:

Certify Standards then evaluates the data provided by the business to calculate Greenhouse Emissions gases (GHG) = activity data x emissions conversion factor.

This assessment process is based on the Kyoto Protocol, while the Global warming potential (GWP) used to calculate CO2e is based on the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) over 100 years so that the Conversion Factors are consistent with the most recent greenhouse gas inventory, in which depending on the case.

Following the inspection, the findings are forwarded for evaluation to the relevant independent department of the body not involved in the on-site inspection. The result of this determines whether or not a certificate of compliance will be issued as well as the level of compliance of the business based on a rating scale.

Certificates are valid for one year.

The recertification process is repeated on an annual basis.