GCCQS — Validation & Verification
Independent · Damascus
A number nobody has tested is not evidence.
01Validation
Validation asks whether a plan can be believed.
It runs before the work: the baseline, the method, and the monitoring that will follow.
02Verification
Verification asks whether a report can be defended.
It runs after the period closes, against the records behind every figure claimed.
We state which one we performed, and over what.
What this is
Certification tests a system. Verification tests a number.
Three pieces of work that are routinely confused. Two of them are on this page, and they are not interchangeable.
- Certification
- An audit of a management system against a standard, closing with a certificate. The subject is how an organisation works.
- Validation
- An examination of a claim about something that has not happened yet — a project plan, its baseline, its monitoring method — reporting whether it is reasonable.
- Verification
- An examination of a claim about a period that has already closed, reporting whether it is materially correct against criteria set in advance.
We do not verify a statement GCCQS helped prepare. Advisory work and assurance work sit in separate teams with separate reporting lines, and the separation is recorded in the engagement file.
Corporate inventories
Three scopes. The weight moves outward.
Every figure in an inventory belongs to one of three scopes. Which one it belongs to is the first thing an informed reader checks.
Scope 1
Direct emissions
Fuel burned in your own boilers, furnaces, kilns and vehicles, and the process emissions of production itself. The easiest to evidence: the fuel was bought, delivered and metered.
Scope 2
Purchased energy
Electricity, steam, heat and cooling you buy and consume. The result turns on which emission factor applies to your supply, so the factor and its source are documented, never assumed.
Scope 3
The value chain
Purchased goods and services, transport, business travel, use of sold products, end of life. Usually the largest share of a footprint and the hardest to evidence: the data sits with your suppliers and your customers.
Scope 3 is where most first inventories come apart. We say so at scoping rather than at the end.
The criteria
Verification without stated criteria is only an opinion.
The frameworks we work to, and what each one governs.
- ISO 14064-1
- Organisational inventoriesHow an organisation quantifies and reports emissions, and where its boundary is drawn.
- ISO 14064-2
- Project reductions and removalsHow one intervention is quantified and monitored against a defined baseline.
- ISO 14064-3
- Validation and verification of GHG statementsHow the work is planned, how evidence is gathered, and what the statement may say.
- ISO 14065
- Requirements for the bodyWhat a validation and verification body must meet: competence, impartiality, process.
- ISO 14066
- Competence of the teamThe knowledge each team member needs, by sector and by type of activity.
- ISO/IEC 17029
- The general frameworkValidation and verification of any declared claim. ISO 14065 sits on top of it.
- GHG Protocol
- Corporate accounting and reportingThe most widely used accounting basis, and the origin of the three scopes.
Which criteria apply to you is settled at scoping and written into the engagement, before any evidence is gathered.
Exporting to the European Union
CBAM moves the burden of proof onto the producer.
The mechanism requires importers to report the greenhouse gases embedded in certain goods entering the European Union. That data can only come from the producer. Emissions have to be attributed to a specific good, from a specific process, over a specific period, from records an outside party can follow.
- A written installation boundary, with each production process mapped to the goods it produces.
- A gap report against embedded-emissions reporting: what is missing, who holds it, and what has to be measured to obtain it.
- A repeatable calculation file for direct and indirect embedded emissions, with the source, the factor and the assumption recorded beside every figure.
- A review of the data package you send your importer, and the follow-up questions we would expect it to attract.
Covered goods and reporting requirements are set by EU legislation and change over time. We confirm the position in force with you at the start of the engagement.
How an engagement runs
The same five stages, whichever question you brought us.
How long each stage takes depends on your sites, your data, and how much of it already exists. The sequence does not change.
01
Scope and criteria
The period, the boundary, the criteria and the level of assurance, agreed in writing before anything else.
02
Risk and sampling
We rank your emission sources by the risk of material misstatement, and sample where an error would matter most.
03
Evidence at source
Meter records, fuel and electricity invoices, production data, and the calculation files themselves. Site visits where remote confirmation is not enough.
04
Findings and correction
Discrepancies are raised in writing with the evidence attached. You correct or justify; we retest what changed.
05
Review and statement
A reviewer who did no fieldwork examines the file. The statement then carries its boundary, period and assurance level on its face.
Next step
Tell us what you are being asked to prove.
Send the reporting period, the sites involved, and who is asking for the figures. We will tell you whether this is validation or verification, what evidence to have ready, and where your current numbers are most likely to be challenged.