News from the EA Committees
by EA Secretariat
A LOOK AT THE CERTIFICATION FIELD
The latest EA Certification Committee (CC) meeting took place on 4 and 5 October 2011 in Prague, Czech Republic.It was chaired by Leopoldo Cortez (IPAC, Portugal), who had just been re-elected as the EACC Chair for another two-year mandate until end 2013.
The CC was pleased to note that EA-6/04: EA Guidelines on the Accreditation of Certification of Primary Sector Products by Means of Sampling of Sites had been successfully adopted and published during the summer following a lengthy and complex drafting process.
AT THE EUROPEAN LEVEL
In anticipation of the publication of the Accreditation and Verification (A&V) Regulation, a Working Group for the Accreditation of GHG Verifiers is about to be created to facilitate discussions between EA ABs and the European Commission (EC), and between EA ABs and stakeholders, as well as to improve collaboration with the EC (when drafting guidelines, for instance).
The need for revision of EA-6/03: EA Document for Recognition of Verifiers under the EU ETS Directive and its extent (from complete withdrawal to adaptation to the current state-of-the-art and implementation of the new status quo) are still to be discussed depending upon the approval of the final version of the EC Regulation on Accreditation and Verification. Provided a need for revision is demonstrated, the CC was mandated by the last EA General Assembly in November 2011 to start a new work item to revise EA-6/03. This revision will be one of the first tasks of the GHG Accreditation WG.
Regarding the EU Organic Farming Regulation, the guidance document is expected to be circulated among both the CC Members and the EA community for comments in the near future. This simultaneous circulation will allow for a shorter commenting period since the document is needed in the CC and for the General Assembly in the near term.
EUROPEAN AND INTERNATIONAL STANDARDISATION
The CC considered the transition process from EN 16001 to the energy management standard ISO 50001 and agreed that if the standard does not exist anymore, accreditation would no longer be valid − unless otherwise provided by legal requirements. EN 16001 will be withdrawn on 24 April 2012. A large majority of CC Members reported that the transition process from EN 16001 to ISO 50001 can be successfully managed without an additional audit by the certification body or an extra assessment by the national accreditation body.
The CC also discussed the issue that ISO has agreed that where a strong demand arose from the market, an appropriate certification standard could be developed for social responsibility. ISO does not regard ISO 26000 as a certification standard since social responsibility is very much culture-related and therefore difficult to be harmonized throughout the world. The CC discussions revealed that there was currently no market pressure for an appropriate social responsibility certification standard in Europe.
Concerning the transition process for ISO 20000-1:2011, it was reported that because ISO 20000-1:2011 is outside the IAF MLA, no transition was planned within IAF. The 28th EA General Assembly held on 23-24 November 2011 in Warsaw, Poland followed the CC’s recommendation and resolved that EA Members should apply a two-year transition period for the accredited certification to the new version of ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011: Information technology - Service Management - Part 1: Service Management System Requirements, from its publication date.
CURRENT AND NEW WORK ITEMS OF THE CC
The collection of examples of accreditation scopes relating to product, service and process certification in voluntary areas has been achieved: the CC agreed that enough flexible options are available, and for certain schemes that need such flexibility due to constant updating of standards, some flexible options are commonly accepted in practice without mentioning the standard version.
The elaboration of a guidance document on witnessing practices for management system certification is currently taking place. The table of contents has been agreed, comments have been collected within the CC and the document should now progress starting with policies and principles, and leaving the more complex issues for further discussion. Several online meetings are planned with the TFG members.
Following EA Resolution 2011(27)32 that EA-3/05, /06, /07 are revised and replaced by one single document including assessor training for all accreditation activities, the EA Laboratory Committee has asked the CC to participate in the revision work. Six CC members have volunteered.
Because there will be a new IAF WG on ISMS (ISO 27001) MLA scope, a survey on ISMS scoping has been launched within the CC in order for ABs to report back their practices in terms of ISMS scopes. The results are being analysed and put forward to IAF.
Two new CC work items have been supported by the EA Advisory Board in October and endorsed by the EA General Assembly in November 2011:
•the revision of EA-6/02: EA Guidelines on the Use of EN 45011 and ISO/IEC 17021 for certification to EN ISO 3834, taking into account the outcome of the workshop jointly organized by EA and the European Welding Foundation (EWF) in December 2010;
•the elaboration of an EA harmonization guidance on the application of ISO/IEC 17021:2011 for OHSAS 18001.
At last the CC, highlighting the positive and fruitful outcome of previous training sessions on ISO/IEC 17021 and 14065, the CC agreed to organise two further sessions in 2012:
•on ISO/IEC 17024 at the end of the 1st quarter;
•on ISO/IEC 17065 at the end of the 2nd quarter.
These issues will be followed up at the next CC meeting on 14-15 February 2012, in Sofia, Bulgaria.
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