Radon
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Certification
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Healthy Indoors 39
and certification decisions. They must submit
minutes of staff and board meetings that prove
their compliance with accreditation standards.
And last but not least, they must allow for public
input into their policies and procedures.
In short, an accredited certification program is
minutely examined by an impartial judge and
declared to be fair, independent, impartial and
relevant to its field.
Credibility = Value
It is easy to see why many "instant" certifica-
tions currently littering the IAQ field cannot
qualify for third-party accreditation. They lack
the basic ingredients common to all worthy
certification programs: integrity, credibility and
independence. They must ask their certificants
to accept on faith the proposition that their cer-
tification is worth the paper it's printed on, while
providing no evidence to prove the point.
Third-party accredited certifications, on the oth-
er hand, carry the most dependable guarantee
of integrity possible: the independent affirmation
of a respected outsider. This is the cornerstone
of a certification's credibility in the marketplace.
Without third-party accreditation, a certifica-
tion is vulnerable to legal challenge and its long
term practical value is questionable. Many
non-accredited certifications are inexpensive
to acquire and maintain, but they are often not
worthy of the savings. Of little value to the
certificant when it comes to buying professional
insurance, these certifications can also become
a liability rather than an asset when challenged
in court.
