Accreditation is a great support for Public Administrations, as it puts a set of means at their disposal that can be used to implement their public policies on promoting soil protection.

Soil is one of the most precious natural resources, however, the effect of human action on the environment (such as industrial processes, agricultural and livestock farms, landfills and so on) is contributing to its rapid degradation. Fundamentally due to pollutant emissions, the unsustainable consumption of raw materials and the overexploitation of natural resources.

All this makes soil conservation one of the most important global environmental problems, as claimed by the International Day of Soil Conservation, July 7. ENAC contributes to this soil protection and conservation by making accredited assessment bodies in various action fields available to the market and the administration.

On one hand, in the soil quality and associated groundwater investigation field, according to Royal Decree 9/2005 and other regional legislative developments, a large majority of the autonomous communities require that control activities be carried out by accredited bodies, highlighting among them, the Quantitative Risk Analysis (Análisis Cuantitativo de Riesgos, ACR) performance and characterizing and control of soil gases.

Similarly, Royal Decree 646/2020, which establishes the requirements aimed at guaranteeing an adequate disposal of waste in landfills and regulates their characteristics, as well as how to correctly manage and exploit them, it requires that certain checks on waste, as well as activities of surveillance, inspection, and control of landfills, must be carried out by accredited inspection bodies.

Finally, accredited activities for characterizing and classifying different types of waste (hazardous and non-hazardous waste, household waste, CDW, etc.) also contribute to soil protection. Among other activities, the basic characterization and compliance tests of waste in accordance with the landfill admission criteria of the aforementioned Royal Decree 646/2020 stand out.