Governance
Independence & impartiality
Role separation, conflict of interest rules and certification committee governance.
Independence is the foundation of RefurbCertified credibility. Our rules ensure no commercial or financial pressure influences certification decisions.
Payment ≠ certification
Fees cover audit organisation and registry maintenance. They never prejudge outcome. Partial audit fee refund may apply on rejection, per our terms.
Functional separation
Sales, billing and support teams have no access to audit files or certification committee votes.
Independence principles
- Impartiality — decisions based solely on objective evidence
- Competence — auditors trained and regularly assessed
- Transparency — public methodology and criteria
- Accountability — traceability of every decision in admin logs
Audit / decision / commercial separation
Three distinct functional entities operate within RefurbCertified:
- Audit directorate — auditor accreditation, scheduling, report quality
- Certification committee — final decision, no hierarchical link to auditors
- Commercial directorate — applications, billing, no access to audit recommendations before decision
Auditor requirements
- Initial RefurbCertified training and annual update
- Prohibition on auditing organisations where they have financial interest
- Auditor rotation on renewals (except documented exception)
- Annual conflict of interest declaration
- Performance assessed on report quality, not approval rate
Certification committee
The committee comprises independent experts in refurbishment, data protection and compliance. It meets remotely or in person for each file.
- Minimum three members for each decision
- Quorum excluding applicant, assigned auditor and commercial staff
- Motivated vote recorded in certification file
- Second opinion available for contentious files
Conflict of interest management
- Mandatory applicant declaration of any link to auditor or committee member
- Automatic reassignment if conflict detected
- RefurbCertified employees prohibited from holding shares in applicant under audit
- Annual institutional independence statement published