The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) circulates strict guidelines to assist organizations in publicizing certifications to the ISO 9001 quality management system and ISO 14001 environmental management system standards.
“By using ISO’s guidelines, you will avoid the pitfalls of false, misleading or confusing statements in your communications about ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 certification and thus avoid harming the credibility of your organization. If you follow the guidelines, you will be demonstrating the same rigour in your communications about certification as you have done in implementing your ISO 9001 quality management system or ISO 14001 environmental management system.” ISO stresses.
The guidelines are intended to help organizations apply good practice when publicizing, communicating and promoting their certification to stakeholders including staff, customers and business partners, and to the general public. The guidelines will prove useful in preparing promotional and communication material such as press releases, advertisements, marketing brochures, videos, staff announcements, logos, slogans and catch lines for diverse media ranging from print and broadcasting, to Internet and multimedia applications, to signs, banners, vehicle fleets and so on.
ISO’s guidelines insist upon reference to the full designation of ISO 9001 in order to avoid any possibility of confusion between certification to the now only valid version and to the older standard.
Also, ISO emphasizes, “ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 give generic requirements for management systems, not requirements for specific products or services. ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification marks of conformity are not to be displayed on products, on product labels, on product packaging, or in any way that may be interpreted as denoting product conformity.”
For more information on the guidelines in publicizing ISO 9001 and 14001 certifications, send an email to [email protected].