I’ve been ill all the weekend so I devoured all the news programmes, from Skynews to AlJazeera. Thankfully it was a good weekend for Spanish sports (Contador, Alonso) and for environmental news. The whole BP issue is getting more and more interesting with new angles everyday. Now the new angle is the allegations that BP tried to ‘buy’ scientists. In the contract it was a clause where of confidentiality for 3 years. See contract at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/22_07_bp_contract.pdf

I’ve always wondered what level of bias second-party services can give. Let me explain, first-party is own claims, second-party is paying an organisation to verify a claim and third-party is a process where the verifier is the same for both parties). For example, first party in this case would BP making a claim, second party BP paying the scientist to do research and third party both BP and the US government paying a third party to do the research.

I don’t believe in second-party assurance schemes. What credibility can have the assurance of an organisation that is paid from a company? From assurance in CSR reports to private organisations giving labels (after paying a fee), I don’t think is credible. Even less credible are those organisations that do both the consultancy and certification. Third-party assurance is the key. For example, for labels that means having the same rules for everybody that want to apply. Having a certifier who is accredited by a accreditation entity. That is what IBU does for EPDs.

http://bau-umwelt.de/hp481/Environmental-Product-Declarations-EPD.htm