In the field of conformity assessment, impartiality and confidentiality are the core foundations for building and maintaining the trust of clients, interested parties, and the community. GIC Vietnam is committed to fully implementing the requirements for ensuring impartiality at all levels and operational functions according to the following principles:1- Top Management Commitment
The Director of GIC Vietnam commits that impartiality is the foremost principle, ensuring that commercial, financial, or any other interests do not influence certification and validation/verification decisions. GIC Vietnam ensures the provision of fair, non-discriminatory services to all clients.
2- Management of Risks to Impartiality
• Annually or upon significant changes, GIC Vietnam systematically performs identification, analysis, and evaluation of risks to impartiality (arising from ownership, governance, personnel, financial relationships, etc.) through the Risk Priority Number (RPN) index.
• If a risk cannot be mitigated to an acceptable level, GIC Vietnam will refuse to provide the associated services.
3- Separation of Activities and Personnel Control
• GIC Vietnam does not provide consulting services for management systems, Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory reporting, or ESG reporting for objects under certification or validation/verification.
• Personnel who have participated in consulting for a client shall not be involved in audit or validation/verification activities for that specific client for at least 24 months following the end of the consultancy.
• For validation/verification activities, experts maintain professional skepticism, not instinctively accepting client evidence as correct without independent verification.
4- Independent Oversight Mechanism (Certification, Validation/Verification Council)
• The Council consists of balanced representation from interested parties (regulatory agencies, associations, experts, clients), ensuring that no single interest predominates.
• The Council monitors GIC Vietnam's activities to detect bias trends and has the right to inform accreditation bodies (BoA, UKAS, etc.) if key impartiality recommendations are not adequately addressed.
5- Independence in Review and Decision-Making
• All certification and validation/verification files must undergo an internal review process by personnel with competence equivalent to a Team Leader who were not involved in the specific project.
• The person making the certification decision or issuing the Validation/Verification Statement must be completely independent of the expert team that performed the direct assessment.
This policy is widely disseminated, understood at all levels, and publicly available on the official GIC Vietnam website (https://gicvn.vn).
Director of GIC Vietnam
