Sustainability
Sustainability that survives an audit
Regulators, customers and investors have stopped accepting slogans. CORE audits and certifies against the frameworks that make a sustainability claim checkable: environmental management, energy performance, greenhouse-gas accounting and carbon-neutrality claims. We assess the evidence; we do not build the system that produces it.
Aspects and impacts
What the operation touches
Energy and fuel
Metered, not estimated
Measurement
One data set
Quantify
Emissions inventory
Scopes 1, 2 and 3
Reduction pathway
Avoid, reduce, substitute
Re-measure returns to Energy and fuel
Verification
Independent check
Assured
Claims that hold
Evidence on request
SYS/13 · Sustainability system
Aspects and energy are measured inside a defined boundary; the reduction pathway is evidenced, then independently verified.
The credibility ladder
Four rungs, each resting on the one below. Most organizations climb them in order; we assess whichever rung you are standing on, and combining standards under one audit programme removes the time duplicated between them.
01
Govern
An environmental management system holds obligations, aspects and improvement under control. Certification to ISO 14001 tests whether that control is operating, not whether it is documented.
ISO 14001
Environmental Management
Compliance under control, waste and energy costs falling, and credible answers for customers who ask.
02
Reduce
Energy is usually the largest controllable impact and cost. An ISO 50001 audit samples the energy review, the baseline, the performance indicators and whether reduction is being measured rather than asserted.
ISO 50001
Energy Management
Energy performance measured, improved and evidenced, with savings that compound annually.
03
Account
A GHG inventory becomes a figure others can rely on once it has been verified. Verification examines boundaries, data sources, calculation and uncertainty against the standard.
ISO 14064
GHG Accounting
A GHG inventory that survives third-party verification, not a spreadsheet built for a slide.
04
Claim
A carbon-neutrality claim is assessed against the hierarchy the standard sets: reduction first, residual emissions offset with credits that meet the criteria, and the whole basis disclosed.
ISO 14068
Carbon Neutrality
A neutrality pathway with hierarchy-compliant reductions, quality offsets and defensible claims.
A word on greenwash
A claim is only as good as the evidence behind it. Where the evidence does not support what you intend to publish, the finding says so plainly, and says which requirement it falls short of. It does not tell you how to close the gap: that would make us the author of the work we are assessing. A smaller claim that holds is worth more than a larger one that does not.
Have your sustainability claim assessed
Tell us the standards, the scope, your effective headcount and your sites. You will get a scope statement and a fixed quotation, with audit duration calculated from the accreditation body's mandatory formula.