What is Accreditation?

Accreditation refers to the endorsement of an organisation’s credibility, competence, , integrity & impartiality in executing its conformity assessment tasks.

“Accreditation refers to the 3rd-party attestation related to a conformity assessment body showing formal demonstration of its competence to execute specific conformity assessment activities” Accreditation, with its various benefits for the quality of goods & services throughout the supply chain, is underpinning practical applications of an increasingly wide range of activities across various sectors of the economy, from forestry to fishing, mining & construction to communications. In fact, Accreditation is an endorsement of a conformity assessment body’s (CAB’s) credibility, competence, integrity & independence in executing its conformity assessment tasks.

In layman terms, the terms certification & accreditation are often used interchangeably. But in the conformity assessment industry, these terms have very distinct & specific meanings.

Certification refers to the “3rd-party attestation related to products, services, processes, systems or persons.” (ISO/ IEC 17000:2004)

Nowadays, more & more organizations are voluntarily choosing to get accredited as they recognize the efficiency that accreditation brings & the opportunities to demonstrate the best practices.