ISO/IEC Guide 65 Accreditation
ISO guide 65 (or EN45011 as it is
known in its European version) is the International Standards Organisation
guideline 'General requirements for bodies operating product certification
systems'.
It became important for
organic certification bodies when the European Regulation 2092/91 added the
requirement for compliance under its Article 9.11. Under the new amendments
to EC 2092/91 of December 2006 (amending regulation EC1991/06) all EU-based
certification bodies will have to be formally accredited against ISO65 whereas non-EU
certification bodies may choose between compliance and equivalence routes
(see European equivalence assessment).
Other countries (eg. Japan and Canada)
have based their system on ISO Guide 65 requirements but have added additional
clauses.
The IOAS offers ISO Guide 65 accreditation for those
certification bodies who require to demonstrate their competence for
regulatory reasons and must be performed against a reference standard. From
the IOAS perspective this may be any organic standard. Standards assessment
is not involved. The reference standard may be the production and processing
standards of a national regulation (often a national standard) but may also be your own or another
organisation's private standard.
If you choose the latter but want to demonstrate its equivalence to a
specific regulation, IOAS offers this possibility as well but under the
separate European Recognition programme.
ISO/IEC Guide 65 is available for
purchase from the
ISO web site
The ISO/IEC Guide 65 is currently under revision by
ISO/CASCO. Current
list of bodies accredited against ISO/IEC Guide 65 -
25kb Current
list of applicant bodies for accreditation against ISO/IEC Guide 65. -
9kb |