World Accreditation Day 2024
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The global accreditation organisations IAF and ILAC and their members celebrate World Accreditation Day on 9 June 2024. The 2024 theme is ‘Accreditation: Empowering Tomorrow and Shaping the Future’🡭 and aims to draw attention to how accreditation can provide confidence in new technologies, digitalisation and sustainability claims as the world undergoes a transformative change.
Accreditation is essential in a world marked by rapid technological advancement, shifting consumer behaviours and ongoing economic uncertainties. This year's World Accreditation Day highlights the role of accreditation in harnessing emerging opportunities and addressing global challenges.
Technological changes
At the forefront of this transformative era is the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0), characterised by the integration of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics into society and industry. These technologies are fundamentally altering how we interact, produce, and innovate.
By providing a framework of trust and reliability, accreditation enables organisations to:
- embrace new technologies and drive innovation confidently. Whether in manufacturing, healthcare or agriculture, accredited conformity assessment confirms that new products and processes meet rigorous requirements, facilitating their adoption and integration into existing systems.
- provide confidence in product safety and regulatory compliance via testing and inspection.
- help businesses implement comprehensive data protection processes, guard against increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, and safeguard customer privacy.
Conformity assessment community have sought to both embrace and respond to technological change. A recent example is the development of the ISO/IEC 42001 Information technology — Artificial intelligence — Management system standard, published in December 2023.
As the first global AI management system standard, it seeks to address transparency, accountability and ethical considerations as the use of AI grows rapidly across sectors. This standard underscores the community's commitment to adapting to evolving technological landscapes and ensuring that AI systems are developed and used responsibly.
Considering environment
As new technologies emerge, environmental and human rights issues persist. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations have recently gained significant importance for consumers, businesses, regulators, and investors. Consumers are becoming more aware of the environmental and social impacts of the products and services they purchase, leading to a growing demand for sustainable and ethically produced goods.
Accredited conformity assessment allows companies to demonstrate their commitment to socially and environmentally responsible practices in their operations and supply chains. It provides consumers and regulators with trust in ESG performance data.
As we transition towards a circular economy that promotes reuse and regeneration, accreditation can provide confidence in the safety, efficiency, repairability, durability, upgradability, recyclability and reusability of products.
Accredited tests, measurements, and validation and verification services also bolster worldwide efforts to combat climate change by supporting energy efficiency initiatives, renewable energy production, and carbon emission reduction efforts.
It’s important to note that these examples of change are only some of the wide range of changes that accreditation addresses.