While ISO develops and maintains the ISO 9000 series of quality management standards and the ISO 14000 series of environmental management system standards, it does not itself carry out certification, does not issue certificates, and does not keep a register of certified companies.

At present, certification schemes are in operation in a number of countries, in which quality or environmental management systems are assessed for conformance to ISO 9000 or ISO 14000 by third parties (certification bodies), who deliver certificates to the companies or organizations concerned. ISO does not have the authority to control certification bodies and, consequently, the ISO Central Secretariat is neither monitoring nor endorsing these certification activities.

• You are looking for information on worldwide certification (registration) bodies
• You would like to know what are the logical steps towards certification for your organization or company
• You have a query about the costs associated with certification (registration) to ISO standards
• You wish to know the names of other companies in your industry sector which have been certified
• You wish to have detailed statistics on worldwide certifications to ISO 9001 or ISO 14001
• You wish to verify the existence (or otherwise) of a particular company's certificate