One of the questions commonly raised is whether or not an OHS management system certificate is valid.
I previously received the following question from a reader –
My company is an Environmental Laboratory in India. It holds an unaccredited certificate issued by an Indian company. Can you clarify how far this certificate is valid.
My response –
I can’t answer your question since the answer is specific to your organization, the clients you conduct work for and the laws of your jurisdiction. For example, in the United States, there are laws and regulations that require testing laboratories to be accredited – including those doing certain environmental tests. These laws and regulations typically include criteria for those doing the accreditation.
Management system standards can be used for a variety of different purposes.
One of those purposes is to set out requirements upon which third-party certification programs can be based. Some of these certifications are reputable and legitimate, whether they are accredited or not. Others may be only sham certifications. These are issued primarily to deceive or encourage reliance on the part of third parties that is not justified based on the level of investigation actually being performed by the individual or organization providing the certification.
The issue is not so much accreditation or not. The issue is the credibility of the certification based on the level of due diligence that supports the determination being made.
I posted this question and response because of the increased interest in making OHS management system certification a requirement in sustainability reporting. It is important to understand that certification alone does not represent due diligence unless it is clear exactly what assessment activities were done to support the certification. It is also important to make sure that the scope of the certification is appropriate to the representations that are being made.
NOTE – This first appears as a blog post on the OHSAS 18001 Expert Website on March 20, 2013.