Certification versus accreditation: what's the difference?

Date added: 09 January 2012

During a series of pre-Christmas business visits and walkabouts, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council's CEO Jan Britton realised that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are struggling to distinguish between environmental accreditations and certifications, and figure out which they need to compete in the world market.
 
Jan visited Sandwell success story Need A Skip, accompanied by finditinsandwell's Steve Massey, and the company asked them a pertinent question.
 
"They raised a particular issue about ISO 14001 (which is an Environmental Management System)," Jan wrote later on his blog. "It seems that lots of consultants offer ISO 14001 certification, which certifies that a company is following the ISO standard, but only UKAS (the UK Accreditation Service) can provide full ISO accreditation which means you actually hold the standard, rather than just following it.
 
"The issue being that many companies don’t understand the difference between certification and accreditation – but for international trade you often need full accreditation – particularly in the environmentally conscious waste industry; the lesser certification is not enough."
 
To clarify the issue, Jan is writing to BIS (the government department for Business Industry and Skills) on the subject - and we'll tell you the response as soon as he hears back.
 
In the meantime, finditintheblackcountry is offering local companies an affordable pathway to holding ISO 14001, through our Skills Development Recognition (SDR) training. Read more.