Tools, checklists and plain answers

Certification is what your organization receives. Accreditation is what a certification body receives from a national accreditation body, confirming it is competent to certify others. You are certified; your registrar is accredited. A certificate from an unaccredited body is worth considerably less.

The independent organization that audits your management system and issues the certificate. Registrar is the older term for the same thing. A consultant cannot be your certification body — that separation is fundamental to the scheme.

A requirement of the standard that is not being met. Findings are recorded against a specific clause or requirement with objective evidence attached, not as general criticism.

A major typically means a required element is absent, has completely broken down, or presents significant risk — and it usually blocks certification until closed. A minor is an isolated lapse in an otherwise functioning system. Some schemes, including R2, designate specific deficiencies that must always be recorded as major.

Something an auditor flags that is not a nonconformity. No corrective action is required, but observations frequently become findings at the next audit if ignored.

Records, statements or facts that can be verified. The most common reason a good operation fails an audit is that the work happens but produces no objective evidence that it happened.

Certification is usually a two-part process. Stage 1 reviews your documentation and readiness; Stage 2 is the full operational audit of whether the system works in practice. Stage 1 findings are your last cheap warning.

A shorter audit, typically annual, confirming your system is still working between full certification cycles. Systems that were built to pass one audit rather than to run tend to unravel here.

The full audit at the end of a certification cycle, usually three years, that renews the certificate.

The written definition of what your certification covers — which sites, processes, products and services are included, and what is excluded. Auditors compare it against what your organization actually does, and mismatches are expensive.

A structured comparison of your current operation against a standard's requirements, producing a prioritised list of what is missing. Distinct from an internal audit, which tests a system that already exists.

A correction fixes the immediate problem. A corrective action addresses why it happened so it cannot recur. Auditors ask for both, and closing a finding with only a correction is one of the more common ways to see it reappear.

The current ISO term covering both documents (procedures, instructions) and records (evidence that something was done). It replaced the older separate terminology and is deliberately less prescriptive about format.

The formal review by top management of whether the system is working, with defined inputs and outputs required by the standard. Reusing last year's minutes is among the most frequently written findings.

The audit the standard requires you to perform on yourself, by someone independent of the area being audited. In small organizations, achieving that independence is often the hard part.

The common clause framework shared across modern ISO management system standards — context, leadership, planning, support, operation, performance evaluation, improvement. It is why 9001, 14001 and 45001 can run as one integrated system.

Materials within R2 requiring specific management because of their toxicity or recovery value — including circuit boards, batteries, CRT glass, mercury-containing devices and PCBs. Failing to name a Focus Material stream in your management plan is an automatic major nonconformity.

The next party receiving R2 Controlled Streams from your facility. Every one must appear on your downstream recycling chain flowchart, and omitting one is an automatic major.

The documented path your materials take through to final disposition. Tracking may stop at the first R2v3-certified vendor, but only where the chain is registered with SERI.

Rendering data on a device unrecoverable, either by physical destruction or by logical sanitization. Facilities performing logical sanitization to enable reuse need R2v3 Appendix B.

The classification system R2v3 uses to assign equipment a processing status at sorting, which then determines the route it takes through your facility.

R2v3 has ten Core Requirements that apply to every certified facility, plus six process-specific appendices you add only for activities you actually perform. Your certificate names which appendices you hold.