From February 2013 to February 2015, EA carried out a full range of activities aimed at implementing accreditation and NABs’ peer-evaluation according to EN ISO 14065 and Commission Regulation (EU) N° 600/2012 for EU emissions trading system (EU ETS), namely greenhouse gas verification.
In August 2013, EA signed a specific agreement with Directorate-General Climate Action (DG CLIMA) of the European Commission (EC) on an action grant for the implementation of accreditation and peer-evaluation of EA-Member national accreditation bodies (NABs) according to EN ISO 14065 and Commission Regulation (EU) N° 600/2012, hereafter called “the Regulation”.
In November 2010, the EA General Assembly had already resolved that ISO 14065 was defined as a new accreditation standard of the EA MLA, and that the EA Multilateral Agreement Council (MAC) started as necessary to include verification as a new EA MLA activity and to prepare for the peer-evaluation process.
The main activities of the 2-year Work Plan supporting the action grant as of 26 February 2013 consisted in:
1. Peer-evaluating policies and procedures established by EA NABs for accreditation of verifiers against EN ISO 14065, the Regulation, the related guidelines provided by DG CLIMA and EA-6/03 M : 2013 EA Document for recognition of Verifiers under the EU ETS Directive and any additional criteria being defined (in advance of subsequent revision of EA-6/03).
The EA MAC defined a peer-evaluation process including a transition arrangement. Based on Document EA-2/02 relating to the organization of EA peer-evaluations, a specific program for peer evaluation of EA NABs providing accreditation of verifiers according to EN ISO 14065 and the Regulation was developed as required by Article 14 of the Regulation, and approved by the EA MAC during its April 2012 and April 2013 meetings.
The EA MLA is now fully operational for the new activity “Verification”, based on EN ISO 14065 and the Regulation. All the 25 EA NABs having applied for peer-evaluation have now joined the EA MLA for ETS verification; they are listed on a dedicated page of the EA website (see Point 4. below).
2. Training EA peer-evaluators for NAB accreditation of EU ETS verifiers.
The EA MAC provided special training of experts for the transitional peer-evaluation of EA NABs and, later on, training of peer-evaluators for the verification field. The former was held as an “Expert Workshop” in March 2013; the latter took place as a “Refresher Training” in December 2014.
3. Establishing an EA-EU ETS Network of experts on EN ISO 14065 and the Regulation.
A network of appointed contact persons from every EA NAB providing accreditation of EU ETS verifiers has been set up to facilitate close and effective cooperation among those EA NABs in order to ensure that accreditation requirements are implemented and applied in an efficient and harmonised manner, including necessary interactions and exchange of information with other EU ETS parties (competent authorities, operators, aircraft operators and verifiers).
For further harmonisation between EA NABs, a Task Force has also been established with those network members working on the revision of EA-6/03 in light of the requirements in EN ISO 14065 and the Regulation, as well as the Guidance Documents published by the EC for the EU ETS scheme and the international Guidance Document IAF MD 6: 2014 – IAF Mandatory Document for the Application of ISO 14065: 2013.
The EU ETS Network Group had two meetings per year in 2013 and 2014. It is continuing its activities, also through other communication channels, notably to elaborate on a recommendation upon how to organise witnessing activities as part of the accreditation process of the EU ETS verifiers. In the meeting in May 2015, it was agreed to change the frequency of the meeting to once a year; the next meeting should take place in May 2016.
4. Setting up national databases for publication of accredited verifiers.
EA NABs providing accreditation of EU ETS verifiers set up a national database of accredited verifiers to allow public access to information (data and scope) on verifiers accredited by each EA NAB.
An EA guide for publication of the data on accredited verifiers in a unified format using the activities defined in Annex 1 of the Regulation was prepared by the EA Communications and Publications Committee and endorsed by the EA Executive Committee in January 2014. This EA Guide is available as EA-INF/09:2014 on the EA website at: http://www.european-accreditation.org/publication/ea-inf-09-rev00-january-2014
According to the Regulation, EA should also facilitate and harmonise access to the national databases in order to enable efficient and cost-effective communication between EA NABs, national authorities, verifiers, operators, aircraft operators and competent authorities. For this purpose, a separate page with links to the databases of EA NABs for their EU ETS accredited verifiers has been developed on the EA website at: http://www.european-accreditation.org/page/national-accreditation-bodies-having-successfully-undergone-peer-evaluation-by-ea
EA will be ensuring that EA NABs’ presentation of their accredited EU ETS verifiers is kept harmonised and that the information provided is easily accessible.
All activities which were agreed on by EA and the EC to be part of the Work Plan were fully achieved by 25 February 2015. EA’s coordinator, Dr Rózsa Ring from the Hungarian NAB (NAT) and an EA Executive Committee member, in co-operation with Niels-Christian Dalstrup from the Danish NAB (DANAK), convener of the EA-EU ETS Network so far, and with Nicole Van Laethem from the Belgian NAB and Chair of the EA MAC, wrote then out an exhaustive Final Technical Report which was submitted to the EC.
Undoubtedly implementing the policy and procedure for EU ETS verification accreditation proves a great success story for EA: it is a brilliant milestone demonstration of the crucial role that EA, as the European accreditation structure, does play not only in a harmonized and efficient implementation, but also in the fine-tuning of European rules for accreditation.