The purposes of the ASC Certification and Accreditation Requirements [CAR: this document] are:

1. To establish requirements for certification to enable all Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs) to operate in a consistent and controlled manner.

2. To establish requirements for accreditation of CABs by the ASC appointed accreditation body.

3. To provide the transparency that is required of an international certification scheme for it to have credibility with potential Stakeholder s, including governments, international governmental bodies (e.g. regulatory bodies, managers), CABs, suppliers of aquaculture products, non-governmental organisations, and consumers.

4. To provide documentation to assure long-term continuity and consistency of the delivery of ASC certification.

The ASC’s appointed accreditation body will set the scope of accreditation for CABs with reference to the ASC certification requirements described in this document. 

The ASC certification and accreditation requirements have been developed to be in full compliance with the FAO Technical Guidelines on Aquaculture Certification.

ASC is a code compliant member of the ISEAL Alliance and its operations are managed to be in conformity with ISEAL codes of good practice. More information is available on the ISEAL website 

The ASC’s certification and accreditation requirements are set out in two parts, which apply to all CABs conducting ASC audits:

• Part A – General certification requirements 
• Part B – Operational certification requirements

Feed Mills that are certified to the ASC Feed Standard may sell products within the scope of their certificate. The requirements that apply to these sales are described in this document.

This document has been developed to address the specific needs of certification to the ASC Feed Standard. The flow and structure of this document reflects that of the ASC farm standards’ CAR. CABs that already hold accreditation for ASC Farm Standards will already comply with many parts of the document.

The CAR is subject to periodic review to incorporate revisions based on developing accreditation and certification practices. As with the ASC standards, the review and revision interval is every three to five years. During this period, the ASC collects and analyses comments submitted by stakeholders.

In the interim, any issues or concerns can be raised by contacting certification@asc-aqua.org. 

All planned reviews and revisions of the CAR will be announced to invite public feedback, with relevant documents published on the ASC website.   

Available Language(s) 

The official version of this document is English. The ASC may translate it into additional languages as necessary. In case of any inconsistencies and/or discrepancies between available translation(s) and the English version, the online English version (pdf-format) will prevail.To request a hard copy of this document, public summaries and other related materials, please contact the Programme Assurance Team at certification@asc-aqua.org

NOTE: This document has been developed for technical use by accredited and applicant CABs, therefore casual readers may find that it is not easy to read. For general readers it is recommended that the ASC website be reviewed prior to this document. 

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) holds responsibility for this document.
Document ID: ASC-CAR-002

Effective Date: Version 1.0.1 of this document is effective from 14 October 2023.

This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. 

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be requested via certification@asc-aqua.org

Postal address: 

Aquaculture Stewardship Council

Daalseplein 101, 

3511 SX Utrecht 

The Netherlands
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