ANSI and Gold Standard Join Forces to Enhance the Auditing Process for Gold Standard Energy Projects

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American National Standards Institute

Dec 16, 2015, 11:22 ET

NEW YORK, Dec. 16, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The climate agreement reached at the COP21 in Paris this month recognizes the need for robust, transparent accounting of emissions, providing a clear mandate for standards operating in this space. Monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) are essential elements of climate and development initiatives, ensuring that project investments go further to deliver greater impacts – a key outcome from Gold Standard programs. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and Gold Standard are working together to develop a new accreditation scheme that will extend the list of auditors eligible to review Gold Standard energy projects while also improving the quality of audits through better oversight.

Historically, only designated operational entities (DOE) registered under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been eligible to act as auditors for Gold Standard projects. While Gold Standard will continue to recognize DOEs, this new scheme also opens the doors to ANSI Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Validation and Verification Bodies (VVBs), providing additional validation and verification options for project developers and implementers.

The energy program will be the first scope that ANSI and Gold Standard collaborate on, with goals to add additional sectors in the future.

"We are really excited about this new partnership," said Owen Hewlett, chief technical officer for Gold Standard. "By working with auditing experts such as ANSI, we are able shape the system to improve efficiencies and quality while also providing more choice to the market."

"We are looking forward to this starting point in the ANSI–Gold Standard partnership and also to expanding the program to encompass other areas in the future. We also look forward to working with the ANSI accredited VVBs as they will now be able to offer ANSI accredited services to Gold Standard energy projects," said Ann Howard, director of the GHG program at ANSI.

For more information on how you can become a Gold Standard–approved Validation and Verification Body (VVB), please contact Ann Howard at [email protected].

About Gold Standard
Gold Standard works to create a climate-secure world where sustainable development brings life-changing benefits to communities everywhere. The organization's role as a standards and certification body is to maximize the impact of climate and development activities. Gold Standard designs processes that amplify the impact of efforts to deliver clean energy and water, responsibly manage land and forests, and transform lives of the world's poor. The organization then verifies those outcomes, inspiring greater confidence that drives investment to accomplish even more.

Gold Standard was established in 2003 by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and other international NGOs as a best practice standard to ensure projects that reduced carbon emissions under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) also delivered on their dual mandate to foster sustainable development. Now with more than 80 NGO supporters and 1,100 projects in over 70 countries, Gold Standard's projects have delivered billions of dollars in climate and development outcomes in local communities all around the world. Learn more at www.goldstandard.org.

About ANSI's Accreditation Program
ANSI offers an accreditation program for organizations providing third-party validation/verification services for the reduction and removal of greenhouse gases (GHG). A member of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), ANSI is the only U.S. body accrediting to ISO 14065. The ANSI Accreditation Program for Greenhouse Gas Validation/Verification Bodies operates according to requirements defined in under ISO/IEC 17011:2004, Conformity assessment - General requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies. For more on ANSI's complete portfolio of accreditation programs, visit www.ansi.org/accreditation.

SOURCE American National Standards Institute