Establishment

What a body must have before it signs anything

Six layers, none optional. Missing one does not make the signature worthless — it makes it a liability for whoever relied on it.

ZERO CARBON VERIFY · ESTABLISHMENT NOTE · 7 MIN READ

Anyone can put a tick on a page. A verification body is the organisation that can be sued for being wrong, and that is a legal structure, not a graphic identity.

The six layers

Layer	What it means	What it costs to fake
Legal form	A legal entity that can carry liability and be sued	A contract
Governance	An impartiality committee with a veto	A meeting cadence
Competence	Verifiers with documented training and assessment	Years of records
Metrology	Traceable measurement, calibrated instruments	Certificates with dates
Accreditation	ISO/IEC 17065 and ISO 14065 assessed by a national body	12–18 months
Liability	Professional indemnity sized to the claims	A premium

Why accreditation is the expensive one

Accreditation is an assessment of the organisation, not of a product. A national body audits your files, interviews your reviewers, watches a real case, and comes back annually. It takes twelve to eighteen months and costs more than everything else on the list combined.

It also converts your statement from “we think” into “a third party checked that we are allowed to think”. In procurement that difference decides whether the document is admissible.

What to check before trusting a body

Is it a legal entity with stated liability limits? If not, walk away.
Who chairs the impartiality committee, and what industry are they from?
Is it accredited, and by whom — check the national body's directory, not the website.
What method version does it verify against, and is the method published?
Has it ever refused a client? A body with a 100% pass rate is not verifying.

Our own position is published rather than implied: the entity exists, governance is documented, and accreditation is not yet granted — every page says so. A body that hides that status is telling you something about how it treats inconvenient facts.

The uncomfortable question

If nobody can be held responsible for a carbon claim, the claim is a marketing asset. That is fine as long as it is described that way. The trouble starts when a buyer, a lender or a regulator relies on it as if it were evidence.

Talk to us ← All insights

This note describes our method and commercial position. It is not a verification statement and carries no assurance. Under the two-track plan the certification conclusion is signed by a licensed partner; this site issues the method, the evidence grades and the register.