Accreditation and Certification for ISO 14001 EMS

摘要

The goal of the ANSI-ASQ American National Accreditation Board (ANAB) for ISO 14001 inthe United States is to provide oversight to the accreditation process assuring conformance to theInternational Standards. The ANAB is led by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)and the American Society for Quality (ASQ). The ANAB, through its oversight councils,provides the tools to ensure that environmental management system (EMS) and qualitymanagement system (QMS) registrars are competent, consistent, and uniform in theiradministration of this quality process. All accreditation decisions are made by the councils as anindependent representation of stakeholders. Organizations are registering to the Standards inrecord numbers worldwide and more recently, in the United States for a number of differentreasons. The results of EMS implementation continues to be documented with somewhat mixedresults but still is acknowledged by most in the field to bring true value to the organizationsimplementing the system, as well as the environment. An independent study of the ANAB bythe National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) found the concept to be sound butdetailed a number of recommendations to strengthen U.S. registration practices. The U.S.Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as many state environmental agencies havebecome active participants in the process and have provided valuable feedback on the program.The ANAB Councils continue to strive to improve the process and take a leadership position inthe international accreditation community.