28

Jan

Understanding Ecosystem Of Accreditation

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The word ‘accreditation’ is used in many contexts.

The journalists are ‘accredited’. Means they are officially recognized by the government.

The ambassadors are ‘accredited’ meaning they are accepted by host country as official representatives of their home country.

According to the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, accreditation is the official approval or certification granted by an organization to individuals or institutions, confirming they have met specific, required standards.

Accreditation is used in education where educational institutions are recognized by an independent body as meeting specified standards. In India, we have accreditation of universities and colleges by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).

Yet another sector where accreditation is used is healthcare whereby hospitals and other healthcare establishments are assessed by an independent body as meeting specified standards. In India, healthcare accreditation was pioneered by the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH).

The subject of this column is none of the above but yet another sector where accreditation is used – to attest competence of conformity assessment bodies like testing or calibration or medical labs or inspection agencies or certification bodies or validation and verification bodies in GHG space.

This space is governed largely by the standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the term accreditation is defined in ISO 17000 - Conformity assessment — Vocabulary and general principles  as:

“third-party attestation related to a conformity assessment body, conveying formal

demonstration of its competence, impartiality and consistent operation in performing specific conformity assessment activities”

The article explains the concept and global ecosystem of accreditation, which means formal recognition of an organization’s competence and compliance with specified standards. Beyond education and healthcare, accreditation is crucial for conformity assessment bodies such as laboratories, inspection agencies, and certification bodies, mainly governed by ISO standards. ISO itself does not accredit; instead, national or regional accreditation bodies perform this role.
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By Anil Jauhri
These bodies are linked internationally through mutual recognition arrangements, now unified under the Global Accreditation Cooperation Inc. (GACI) formed in 2026 from the merger of IAF and ILAC. Accreditation is generally voluntary but often mandated by regulators and trade agreements to ensure global acceptance of test reports and certifications. The article also warns against unauthentic accreditation bodies operating outside recognized systems, emphasizing the need to distinguish credible accreditation from misleading claims.

Who accredits?

Contrary to what many mistakenly believe, ISO does not accredit or authorize anyone to certify against ISO standards. It is just a standards setting body and no more. Its standards are freely available for use by anyone.

Typically, in each country there is an accreditation body (AB) which undertakes accreditation of conformity assessment bodies (CABs).

Europe has legislated and there is a single national accreditation body in each member of EU.

In many, especially developing, countries, the government has set up accreditation bodies and not by law by but by market demand there is only one accreditation body – say in Sri Lanka or Bangladesh or Pakistan in our neighbourhood and most of Africa and Gulf.

In some developed economies, there are multiple accreditation bodies, that too in private sector – be it USA or Japan or Canada or South Korea.

India has also become a multi-AB country with private accreditation bodies coming into being in addition to the national accreditation boards established by the government.

There are some multi-country ABs as well – e.g. in Gulf there is GCC Accreditation Center (GAC) or in Africa, there is Southern African Development Community Accreditation Services (SADCAS) which serves as many as13 countries.

Is there a global system to supervise accreditation?

Indeed there is one.

There were two global associations of accreditation bodies – International Accreditation Forum (IAF), which covered accreditation of certification and validation/verification bodies, and International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC), which covered accreditation of laboratories and inspection agencies. There are regional bodies broadly in each continent e.g. European Accreditation Cooperation in Europe or Assia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation in Asia and Pacific.

In a historic development, IAF and ILAC have merged into a single international body Global Accreditation Cooperation Inc (GACI) wef 1 Jan 2026.

IAF and ILAC have operated a system of mutual recognition whereby individual accreditation bodies are evaluated by respective regional bodies who in turn are evaluated by IAF/ILAC every 4 years, which will continue under the new global body, and provides international equivalence to accreditation and conformity assessment. This leads to, for example, acceptance of an ISO 9001 certificate issued in India globally or a test report from an accredited lab being accepted globally thus facilitating freer trade notwithstanding that the global order is ‘trumped’ right now!!!.

Is accreditation obligatory?

Generally speaking no. Accreditation globally is voluntary with few exceptions and it is not obligatory for a CAB to get accredited. Nor is it obligatory for an AB to become member of GACI.

The entire mutual recognition system of accreditation under what is now GACI is voluntary.

However, many governments have accepted the above system in their regulations and many regulators specify accreditation as a prerequisite for recognition of labs or inspection or audit bodies for their purposes.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India for example notifies food testing labs and food safety audit agencies based on accreditation to respective international standards.

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency has recently notified NABCB accreditation under the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme.

In the free trade agreements, many countries accept test reports or audit reports or certifications from other countries based on the GACI system. India has trade agreement with Singapore signed as far back as 2005 in which accreditation was a prerequisite for telecom and electrical sectors for acceptance of testing and certification.

However, in some regulations, accreditation is not prescribed. Under the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, there is a provision to recognize Ayush labs but accreditation is not required.

It is to be understood that a regulator or a user may prescribe accreditation as prerequisite for accepting labs or audit agencies etc.

It has to be noted that normally regulators prescribe domestic accreditation as BEE has done and then negotiate with trading partners for mutual acceptance of accreditation based on GACI MRA.

Are there other accreditation systems outside GACI?

Indeed there are!

Regulators may choose to accredit themselves directly rather than rely on ABs. In India, APEDA accredited CBs for organic certification for years till in the latest revision of NPOP, it has prescribed accreditation to ISO 17065. US Department of Agriculture (USDA) directly accredits CBs for organic certification even in India.

Then there is UNFCCC which has a well established system of accreditation for validation and verification bodies approved under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and now under Article 6.4 mechanism which does not rely on ABs or GACI system. Even its accreditation standard goes beyond what the relevant ISO standards prescribe. Indian validation and verification bodies are an important player in the UNFCCC system one of them being the first to be accredited under Article 6.4 globally.

There is another actor in the voluntary sector – what are globally called the scheme owners. They own largely certification or GHG schemes though there can be inspection schemes as well. Many of them rely on GACI system for approving independent CABs based on accreditation – Verra in GHG or GlobalGAP in agriculture or FSSC 22000 in food safety are some of the examples. Participation in these voluntary schemes is important for Indian industry as they promote exports and/or earn foreign exchange.

However, some scheme owners have their own accreditation systems – for example the popular SA 8000 certification system relies on its own accreditation. Another well known scheme owner Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) set up its own accreditation body, Assurance Services International (ASI) and has now set up ASI NA in USA which caters to not only FSC but some other scheme owners like Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) and Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) outside of GACI system. Yet another scheme owner, the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), also operates its own accreditation.

Of course, since accreditation is an unregulated space, anyone can set up an accreditation body – profit or not for profit. It has led to the malady of some accreditation bodies, who show addresses in USA or UK or Europe and claim to provide accreditation, but are not part of GACI system and there is no way to ascertain their authenticity. There are any number of CBs who flaunt such accreditations and essentially dupe not only the industry but more importantly, the users and purchasers of goods and services, who have no knowledge of the accreditation ecosystem. It is a serious malady and actually calls for regulation of conformity assessment which was recommended by the Planning Commission as far back as in the Plan document of 2006.

Conclusion

While the global system now operating under GACI with accreditation bodies in various countries is the largest and most visible accreditation system, one has to be aware of other equally credible systems of accreditation which also provide gateway to global markets and more importantly of what can be called ‘unauthentic’ accreditation bodies to be able to distinguish ‘good’ from ‘bad’.

(A cricket buff from his student days, Anil Jauhri is   ex-CEO, National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies and an international authority on standardisation.)

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