In January 2009 the DMA launched the PAS 2020 standard with the aim of helping the direct marketing industry become more environmentally friendly in its production and processes.
This final film in our series sees Robert Keitch, director of media channel development and environmental affairs at the DMA, explain the various paths to PAS 2020 compliance, via self-certification and second/third-party certification, as businesses aim to make their marketing more sustainable.
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There are three ways that organisations can achieve certification. The first is via self-certification. That’s where you simply look at your processes within your own organisation and make an assessment of where you sit against PAS 2020 requirements. It’s something you do as an internal exercise for your organisation.
Secondly, there is second-party certification, which is where for example a client might decide to audit a supplier to ensure the supplier is giving them the services that they thought that they were buying that then comply with PAS 2020.
And thirdly, and arguably the most robust form, is to be externally verified by a third-party body. In this case that would be British Standards Institute, who’ve got a world renowned reputation for their auditing and management systems ability.
They will come into the promoting organisation’s business and they will audit their processes, procedures and the material that they produce. This will be done on an annual basis and it will follow a very similar pattern to the kind of auditing that is done for things that ISO 14001. ISO 14001 is the international standard for environmental management systems. So for those organisations that have that kind of certification this shouldn’t be any great problem in terms of implementing it. It should neatly slot in with that kind of management system.
It’s not a one-off. It’s something where and is based on the management systems within your business and what is actually basically certified is that you have the management systems in place to ensure that the materials that you produce are environmentally sensitive. So once you’ve had your management system audited in the beginning you’ll need to have it revisited to ensure that those systems are still living up to the promise that was made. So that means having an audit perhaps in a year or two years’ time.