Accredia - Italian Accreditation System

UNI has published technical report UNI/TR 11311 - "Indications regarding the application of UNI EN ISO 14001 in Italy, formulated on the basis of the criticalities which emerged and on the basis of practical experience".

 

UNI's environmental commission, through its working group (GLA) "systems of environmental management", analysed the document SINCERT RT-09 "Provisions for the accreditation of bodies operating the certification of environment management systems (EMS)". Following this analysis the working group decided to publish the technical report UNI/TR 11331 so as to capitalise on the experience.

 

More than ten years of the application of standard UNI EN ISO 14001 have highlighted certain criticalities in the environment management system (EMS), which is the reason why UNI and SINCERT wrote the technical report which reviews TR-09 SINCERT and gathers the principal indications and recommendations for a better implementation of an EMS.

 

The document UNI/TR 11331 is the first important and concrete result of the collaboration between the two organisations. With a view to the simplification of the documents necessary for environment certification, they have prepared an information resource to facilitate comprehension of the requirements of UNI EN ISO 14001, thereby encouraging greater harmonisation of application in Italy, unifying the specific competencies concerning technical matters with those regarding certification.

 

The Director General of ACCREDIA, Filippo Trifiletti, has stated that the technical report UNI/TR 11331 is a significant result of the collaboration between the accreditation system, today represented by ACCREDIA which was born through the merger of SINAL and SINCERT and the national standardisation body. The document brings together all of SINCERT's experience in the accreditation of certification of environment management systems against UNI EN ISO 14001, making best use of the content of technical regulation TR-09 whose aim is  full harmonisation to be reviewed and subsequently issued under the ACCREDIA symbol. UNI and ACCREDIA are both engaged in strengthening the effectiveness and credibility of accredited certifications and, in the specific case of environment schemes, important developments are expected from the project of a UNI-ACCREDIA working group on the environmental certification in government authorities and administrations which is due soon. Still in the field of collaboration, a day of updating is planned regarding the system of environment management certification, during which, apart from the explanation of document UNI/TR 11331, there will be the presentation of the new technical regulation TR-09, with the provisions for the accreditation of certification bodies ISO 14001.

 

The more sensitive topics which the UNI/TR document addresses are:

The technical report UNI/TR 11331 is therefore to be considered as an informative resource for market support, intended to favour a better understanding of UNI EN ISO 14001 and thus a better uniformity of application.

 

The terms of application and validity of technical regulation SINCERT TR-09 will be reviewed and communicated to the certification bodies operating EMS certification in compliance with standard UNI EN ISO 14001, through an opportune transposition of the relevant items. In 2008, SINCERT continued to follow up observations and complaints coming from the market, making effective use of the procedure "Management of complaints, appeals and observations" which was implemented with the introduction of screen-based modality. A box has been created on SINCERT's (va bene?) website which is accessible to all users, for the submission of observations and complaints to be sent directly to SINCERT.

 

The objective has been to make the handling of complaints and observations more effective and more flexible and thus to guarantee a better service for all users who communicate - appropriately and precisely - failings, poor services or anomalies by certified organisations or accredited certification bodies.

 

Complaints and observations are an essential part of looking after and maintaining satisfaction of all types of users - from accredited subjects to private and public organisations, from organisation business clients to final users, and they are crucial to the efficiency of the conformity assessment system.

 In 2008, 151 observations and complaints were dealt with, 60 of which were closet by December 31. They were submitted by purchasers of goods and users of certified services, signalling failings during product purchase or services offered by an organisation certified under accreditation for quality management systems (84%), for environment management systems (3%) and for the product (4%). Other observations or complaints (apart from 2% which were anonymous but nevertheless handled, despite management policy and after verification) were submitted by  private citizens (42%), companies (7%), government authorities (4%) and other bodies (2%). The rest were submitted by subjects directly involved in operations of the body (SINCERT itself, members of association structures, assessors etc). SINCERT took constant care of surveillance activities of the system of offer and utilisation of certified goods and services, and also of the criticality of the procedures of management of observations and complaints for the SINCERT mission.

         

Complaints held to be valid necessitated numerous actions towards the bodies involved, calling for, where applicable, careful control of certified organisations to verify the correct application of the management system, and the adoption, if necessary, of appropriate corrective actions.

 

In particular, in 2008, some observations resulted in the necessity of planning supplementary audits at the competent bodies, while others were dealt with by the certification bodies during surveillance audits at the locations of the certified organisations.

The majority of the complaints were cleared by SINCERT during on-site audits at which the audit team verifies correct management and the clearance of complaints and observations.

By December 31 most of the complaints submitted in 2008 had been satisfactorily cleared in the following manner: 61% were dealt with by certified organisations (of which on two occasions the certification body intervened), 34% were dealt with by the competent bodies, and SINCERT - either directly or indirectly - handled 5% of the cases.