IAF Liaisons

ISO 14065:2020 Published

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John C. Shideler, PhD
President, Futurepast Inc.

In December 2020, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published the 3rd edition of ISO 14065, a document that has been used since 2007 to establish and manage bodies performing validation and verification of greenhouse gas statements. ISO TC 207, the working group responsible for the standard, has extended its scope beyond greenhouse gas statements to embrace environmental information statements generally. It is designed to be used in conjunction with ISO/IEC 17029.

At its October 2019 meeting in Frankfurt, Germany, IAF endorsed ISO/IEC 17029 as a normative document effective on its date of publication (late October 2019). ISO 14065 cites ISO/IEC 17029 as a normative reference and incorporates its clauses by reference. ISO 14065 is different from ISO/IEC 17029 in that it:

  • includes terms and definitions specific for use in validating and verifying environmental information,
  • expands upon some of the requirements found in ISO/IEC 17029, and
  • provides a unique set of normative and informative Annexes developed by ISO TC 207 for use by validation and verification bodies (VVBs).

Informative Annex A provides information about types of opinions, including a table illustrating variant names from those used in the document, and a table describing types of misstatements and how they relate to opinion types.

Informative Annex B provides guidance to VVBs on the rules they should adopt when their clients refer to validated or verified statements, and on the use of marks.

Informative Annex C provides examples of reports of factual findings, which are issued by bodies upon the conclusion of an Agreed-Upon Procedures engagement.

Normative Annex D defines additional requirements applicable to green bond validation, verification, and Agreed-Upon Procedures.

Normative Annex E specifies additional requirements applicable to greenhouse gas validation, verification, and Agreed-Upon Procedures.

Normative Annex F specifies additional requirements applicable to validation, verification, and Agreed-Upon Procedures associated with reporting investments and financing activities related to climate change made in conformity to ISO 14097 (currently at Final Draft International Standard stage).

The Joint Working Group in ISO TC 207 that developed ISO 14065 anticipates adding additional normative Annexes when normative standards are published relating to environmental information. First among these is expected to be ISO 14017 which specifies requirements for verification and validation of water statements (this document is currently at Committee Draft stage).

According to the transition guidance issued in Frankfurt, “any accreditation against the new version of ISO 14065 shall require accreditation to ISO/IEC 17029.” Accreditation bodies (ABs) have up to 12 months from the date of publication of ISO 14065 to be ready to accredit VVBs to the 3rd edition of the standard. We anticipate that some ABs will take less time than this to prepare, and that accreditations to ISO/IEC 17029 and ISO 14065:2020 will begin to occur by the second half of 2021.

Many VVBs will transition to the new accreditation standard and to ISO 14064-3:2019 at the same time. This makes sense because ISO 14065:2020 was written by the same experts who had revised ISO 14064-3 and ISO 14065 normatively references that document. Specifically, ISO 14065 uses the same terminology as ISO 14064-3:2019, and it refers to Agreed-Upon Procedures which is a new type of engagement defined in that document. Of course, a VVB may wait up to three years until November 2023 to transition to ISO 14065 according to the transition rules decided in Frankfurt. The deadline for VVBs to transition to ISO 14064-3 is April 2023.

Categories: IAF Liaisons