ENAC has granted European Quality Assurance Spain (EQA) and Agencia de Certificación Española (ACIE) the first accreditations for validating self-assessment with respect to the principle of do no significant harm to the environment (or DNSH principle) required in managing aid for investment projects or reforms within the framework of the European Recovery and Resilience Facility. Likewise, these are the first accreditations in accordance with the UNE-EN ISO/IEC 17029 standard issued by ENAC and one of the first accreditations for this activity issued worldwide.

The importance of these accreditations lies in the fact that, in applying European legislation, all reforms or investments that are executed within the framework of the Spanisg National Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (Plan de Recuparación, Transformación y Resiliencia, PRTR) must demonstrate compliance with the DNSH principle contained in Regulation (EU) 2020/852.

For this purpose, aid applicants must carry out a self-assessment of compliance with this principle for investments and projects eligible for public funding. The granting authority may require that such self-assessment be accompanied by an external validation opinion, confirming the conclusions of the self-assessment and ensuring that they have a sound technical basis, are reasonable and are sufficiently and appropriately justified.

These validations must be carried out by organizations that have the appropriate independence and technical competence so that the administration can have confidence in the result of their work, and it is here that accreditation once again proves to be a very useful tool for public administrations.

By requiring accredited validation, administrations significantly reduce the risks associated with the reliability of validators, since they know that being accredited, they operate according to international standards and under the assessment and monitoring of ENAC.

 

Why trust accredited validation?

The UNE-EN ISO/IEC 17029 standard contains the requirements and general principles for the competence, impartiality and functioning of the bodies carrying out the validation and verification in any sector, area, or field of activity, together with ISO/IEC 14065, which provides a basis for inspecting and recognizing the competence of environmental information validation bodies.

Accreditation by ENAC attests to the accredited body having reliable inspection and decision processes and that they are carried out by competent and impartial personnel, with the technical capacity to inspect the holder's statement on its compliance with the DNSH principle, providing confidence and assurance to the administration and other interested parties. For further information, please contact Juan Peláez, from ENAC's Certification and Validation department.