Main navigation

Certifications

ISO Standards

ISO develops and publishes International Standards. ISO doesn’t provide certification or conformity assessment. You’ll need to contact an external certification body for that.

ISO14000 Environmental management:

The ISO 14000 family addresses various aspects of environmental management. It provides practical tools for companies and organizations looking to identify and control their environmental impact and constantly improve their environmental performance. (Source: ISO)

ISO 26000 Social responsibility:

ISO 26000 provides guidance on how businesses and organizations can operate in a socially responsible way. This means acting in an ethical and transparent way that contributes to the health and welfare of society. (Source: ISO)

SA 8000 Standard

One of the world’s first auditable social certification standards for decent workplaces, across all industrial sectors. It is based on conventions of the ILO, UN and national law, and spans industry and corporate codes to create a common language to measure social compliance. (Source: Social Accountability International)

Norme BNQ 21000

BNQ 21000 offers a normative guide (« BNQ Standard 21000 ») and an application methodology (« Method BNQ 21000 ») intended to guide and empower organizations of all types in the gradual adoption of sustainable management practices and help formalize a dialogue with multiple stakeholders | L’Approche BNQ 21000 propose un guide normatif (Norme BNQ 21000) et une méthodologie d’application (Méthode BNQ 21000) et a pour but de guider et d’outiller les organisations de tous types dans l’adoption progressive des pratiques de gestion durable, ainsi que d’aider à formaliser un dialogue avec leurs multiples parties prenantes. (Source: bnq21000)

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a non-profit organization that promotes economic sustainability. It produces one of the world's most prevalent standards for sustainability reporting — also known asecological footprint reporting, environmental social governance (ESG) reporting, triple bottom line (TBL) reporting, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting. GRI seeks to make sustainability reporting by all organizations as routine as, and comparable to, financial reporting. (source: Wikipedia ,Globalreporting)

Ecological Footprint Reporting:

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted with the planet's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area necessary to supply the resources a human population consumes, and to assimilate associated waste. (Source: Wikipedia)

Environmental Social Governance (ESG) Reporting:

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) refers to the three main areas of concern that have developed as central factors in measuring the sustainability and ethical impact of an investment in a company or business. Within these areas are a broad set of concerns increasingly included in the non-financial factors that figure in the valuation of equity, real-estate, corporations and fixed-income investments. (Source: Wikipedia)

Triple Bottem Line (TBL) Reporting:

The TBL is an accounting framework with three dimensions: social, environmental (or ecological) and financial. The TBL dimensions are also commonly called the three Ps: people, planet and profits and are referred to as the "three pillars of sustainability." (Source: Wikipedia)

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Reporting:

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is defined as the voluntary activities undertaken by a company to operate in an economic, social and environmentally sustainable manner. (Source: Government of Canada)

CSA Sustainability Mark

The CSA sustainability mark tells retailers, regulators, and consumers that your product has met defined environmental performance requirements and corporate responsibility requirements as outlined in CSA Group sustainability standards. To display the CSA Group sustainability mark, product must be assessed against criteria and attributes including: materials of concern (toxic or hazardous materials); material efficiency (product recycled content, packaging recycled content, de-materialization or efficient use of raw material resources); energy consumption during product use; manufacturing and operation processes (environmental management systems, greenhouse gas emissions reporting, water management, pollution prevention, corporate sustainability); product performance (functionality, reliability, reparability); end of life management (recyclability, design for recycling, landfill diversion programs). (Source:csagroup.org)

Certifications from Living Building Challenge

Living Building Certification:

A Living Building is a demonstration that the built environment can actually help restore the natural environment. A project achieves Living Building Certification by attaining all Imperatives assigned to its Typology

Petal Certification:

While achieving Living Building Certification is the ultimate goal, meeting the Imperatives of multiple Petals is a significant achievement in and of itself. For this reason, the Living Building Challenge offers Petal Certification. This certification option provides a platform for a project to inform other efforts throughout the world and accelerate the adoption of restorative principles.

Net Zero Energy Building Certification:

Net Zero Energy Building Certification recognizes building projects that achieve the Energy Petal, along with subset of Imperatives within the Place, Equity and Beauty Petals. Certification for Net-Zero Energy building projects is simple, cost effective and critical for integrity and transparency. (Source: living-future.org)

Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM)

BREEAM is the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method for buildings and large scale developments. Popular mainly in Europe currently, it sets a high standard for practice in sustainable design and has become a widely used measure used to describe environmental performance of buildings and communities.

Environmental Product Declaration (EPD®)

An Environmental Product Declaration, EPD®, is a verified document that reports environmental data of products based on life cycle assessment (LCA) and other relevant information and in accordance with the international standard ISO 14025 (Type III Environmental Declarations). (Source:environdec.com)

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a rating system that is recognized as the international mark of excellence for green building in over 132 countries. LEED professional credentials demonstrate current knowledge of green building technologies, best practices, and the rapidly evolving LEED rating systems. (Source: Canada Green Buiding Council)

Envision

Envision is a non-profit organisation that offers a thorough rating system which provides insights to infrastructure projects design and engineering teams, professionals, consultants, and corporations to attain higher levels of sustainability. The system has 60 sustainable criteria that take into account a project’s design and engineering, construction and operation impacts on the surrounding society, economy, and the environment. (Source: Institute For Sustainable Infrastructure)

Tags:

certification