To standardize the nationwide voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction trading and related activities, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the State Administration for Market Regulation of the People’s Republic of China issued the Measures for the Administration of Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Trading (Trial) in October 2023. The document clearly notes that validation and verification bodies are encouraged to obtain accreditation. This signifies that the accreditation scheme for validation and verification bodies, established by the China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS), has been further recognized by relevant regulatory authorities.

The Measures for the Administration of Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Trading (Trial) is a foundational system to ensure the orderly operation of the national voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction trading market. It sets the basic management requirements for greenhouse gas voluntary emission reduction trading and its related activities, and clarifies the rights and responsibilities of each market participant. Article 31 of the Measures stipulates, “Validation and verification bodies are encouraged to obtain accreditation.”

Accreditation of validation and verification bodies is a third-party attestation based on international standards, national standards, or technical specifications, evaluating whether these bodies have the corresponding technical and managerial capabilities. An increasing number of international, regional, or national greenhouse gas control schemes require validation and verification bodies to be accredited. Currently, accreditation of validation and verification bodies is widely applied in areas such as greenhouse gas emission management, environmental claims, green finance, and other fields related to environmental protection and sustainable development.

In 2018, CNAS established China’s accreditation scheme for validation and verification bodies and included it as the fourth major field of accreditation by 2022. Currently, China has nine validation and verification bodies for greenhouse gas accredited by CNAS.

The CNAS accreditation scheme aligns its requirements and criteria with the principles outlined in ISO/IEC 17029 Conformity assessment – General principles and requirements for validation and verification bodies to ensure that accredited bodies meet internationally recognized criteria for competence and reliability in conducting validation and verification activities. This helps ensure that validation and verification bodies accredited by CNAS follow globally recognized best practices, maintain technical competence, employ qualified personnel, and operate in an impartial and consistent manner when performing their duties. The principles outlined in ISO/IEC 17029 form a crucial part of the accreditation process conducted by CNAS.

The CNAS validation and verification scheme was recognized by relevant government departments from its inception. In 2018, the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued the Interim Measures for Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) of Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Civil Aviation Activities, which requires verification bodies for record-keeping to “obtain and maintain the relevant accreditation from a national accreditation body,” explicitly adopting accreditation results in energy-saving and emission reduction management.

As China pursues high-quality economic and social development, the value of accreditation in regulation has been increasingly recognized in regulation supervision. To date, China has 44 national laws, regulations, administrative rules, and normative documents that directly or indirectly adopt accreditation results. The scope of adoption spans multiple areas, including forensic identification/forensic science, laboratory biosafety, compulsory product certification, pollution-free agricultural product certification, green market certification, feed product certification, organic product certification, hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) certification, measurement management system certification, service certification, energy efficiency assessment, radio equipment testing, and inspection of imported waste materials, etc.