Straight answers on ISO certification, ESG reporting and ISCC

Most UK organisations come to us with a deadline attached to someone else's requirement: a tender return date, a customer audit, a lender's information request or a group reporting calendar. Our first step is always to read that requirement in its original wording, because a framework asking for "certified environmental management" and one asking for "carbon reduction plan evidence" need very different work.

From there we scope in writing — the standards and clauses in scope, the sites covered, the documents that already exist, the gaps we can see, and a dated plan to close them. Work is delivered by consultants who have run these programmes inside regulated UK businesses, supported by the technical functions of the wider Brolch Consulting group in Europe. It is a fixed-fee or day-rate engagement, not an open-ended retainer, and the scope is agreed before any work starts.

Implementation is deliberately hands-on. We write the management system documents with your team rather than for them, run the internal audit and management review alongside your nominated owner, and hold a pre-assessment against the certification body's likely findings. When the external audit arrives, the objective is no major nonconformities and an owner inside the business who can carry the system forward through annual surveillance.

After certification our involvement usually continues through internal audit cycles, ESG report assurance preparation and ISCC surveillance. The answers below cover the recurring practical questions; if yours is not here, telephone or email us and a consultant will answer it directly.