Accreditation & Assessment

Accreditation and certification provide trust in the market place and this is often transmitted through use of logos and marks or statements which may be on products, advertising, web sites and certificates.

Inappropriate or deliberate misuse of such logos and language can undermine this so we are providing here a central location of resources to inform producers, traders and consumers on their proper use.

We invite anyone with any concerns on use of logos within the scope of activity of the IOAS to contact us with any concerns.

Marks are used at different levels; business to business and business to consumer.

The IOAS accreditation symbol (see right) is a business to business mark that denotes that a certification body is accredited by IOAS and indicates their unique contract number. It may be used on certificates within the scope of their accreditation and on web sites and other promotional material. Rules for its use are set out in the IOAS Use of Logo and name policy.

IOAS is a IAF MLA signatory. Accreditations granted by IAF MLA signatories are recognised worldwide based on their equivalent accreditation programs.

Businesses will be able to see at a glance that a certification body using the IAF MLA Mark has been accredited by an accreditation body that is a signatory to the IAF MLA.

The IAF-MLA Mark must be used in combination with the IOAS accreditation symbol. For ISO/IEC 17065 accredited certification bodies the Mark may be used on web sites, advertisements and letterheads etc.  The Mark cannot be used on certificates unless it is for a recognised MLA sub-scope. The only MLA sub-scope IOAS is currently  able to offer is GlobalG.A.P.

To use the IAF MLA Mark , IOAS  ISO/IEC 17065 accredited Certification Bodies will first need to sign an agreement for use of the IAF MLA Mark. For more details on the use of the IAF MLA Mark please read General principles on the Use of the IAF MLA Mark.

Each scheme owner that IOAS works with, whether government or private, has its own logo to denote that products have been certified to their rules. These work as both business to business (on certificates for example) and business to consumer logos which appear on products.

The following table indicates the scheme, the logo, main use and a link to the scheme owner and their published rules on permitted use.