Validation and verification bodies

The following VVBs have been approved by the Peatland Code Executive Board to validate and verify Peatland Code projects.  

• Soil Association Certification Ltd  

• Organic Farmers and Growers (OF&G)  

These VVBs are accredited under the sectoral scope of Agriculture Forestry Other Land Use (AFOLU) to ISO/IEC 17029:2019 Conformity assessment – General requirements for verification and validation bodies and sector application ISO/14065:2020 General principles and requirements for bodies validating and verifying environmental information. These VVBs are currently in the process of extending their UKAS accreditation (extension of scope) to include the Peatland Code. See UKAS pilot below for more information. 

SAC Consulting Ltd 

SAC Consulting was appointed by the Peatland Code Executive Board as a VVB in September 2022. At the time, SAC Consulting met all requirements to be an approved VVB and was working towards the required UKAS accreditation. However, as the rules in the market have changed requiring VVBs to be fully ISO accredited, the Peatland Code updated the eligibility criteria and  SAC does not unfortunately currently meet the new accreditation requirement. Therefore, while SAC is applying to UKAS for accreditation, the Peatland Code Executive Board have paused SAC accepting any new Peatland Code projects until UKAS accreditation to the ISO standards has been achieved.  

The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is the national accreditation body for the UK appointed by the government, to assess organisations that provide certification, testing, inspection and calibration services.  

 

In May 2022 UKAS were satisfied that the Peatland Code meets the requirements for conformity assessment schemes required by ISO/IEC 14065 and EA-1/22. UKAS will now look to accredit our validation/verification bodies against the Peatland Code. This phase is expected to complete in 2024.   

 

The Pilot Scheme aims to provide assurance that Peatland Code projects and their GHG assertion will be validated and verified by an accredited independent validation/verification body. Some Validation and Verification bodies may already hold ISO 17029:2019 and will be just extending their scope to cover the Peatland Code; other VVBs may require a longer application to cover the full suite of ISO standard outlined here. 

There are three scopes that validation/verification bodies can be accredited for: 

 

Scope 1 is the head office assessment where all of the conformity assessments take place, such as reviewing staff training, quality systems database, and policies.  This usually takes place in person; however, if the validation/verification body already holds UKAS accreditation for other schemes it can be carried out online. 

 

Scope 2 is for restoration validation and this is carried out via a witness audit. 

 

Scope 3 Is for year 5 verification which is also carried out as a witness audit. 

We want to ensure that: 

• Peatland Code projects are validated and verified to the same level of scrutiny from all three validation/verification bodies, that their systems and processes are up to date, and that they are best placed to issue the GHG option statements and GHG assertions. 

• Interpretation of the scheme requirements between the validation and verification bodies remains the same. 

For any information related to UKAS or Accreditation, please contact our Peatland Code Development Manager: Garance Wood-Moulin, GWMoulin@iucn.org.uk