The purpose of this blog is to provide information about the systems, operations and requirements necessary for the operation of a social and/or environmental certification scheme.

This website is about the ‘stuff under the hood’ in certification, that is to say the elements of certification that make it work and allow you, the expert on a key issue area to turn your (and your organization’s) detailed knowledge of an issue into a certification system.

I am not an expert in forestry, fisheries, tourism, materials design, worker rights, recycling, or any other area to which you may wish to apply certification but I have worked on systems to certify for these things. My expertise is in how certification systems work and in helping issue experts create certification schemes that can transform markets, change peoples lives and safeguard the planet.

The real goal of any certification scheme is to power change by allowing business, governments and consumers to identify, specify and use processes, products, services and production methodologies that meet their needs and support their (and their customer's) values. The better built that a scheme is, the better the chance there is to make change happen.

The material in this website is not necessarily easy to accomplish and really serious folks will need professional help to get a new scheme up and running or to make changes in an existing one. It is my hope that this website will be a primer to provide the basics and help those who are considering the creation of a certification scheme by exploring a wide range of aspects in standards, accreditation, certification and labelling systems.