ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015 contains principles and requirements for the competence, consistency and impartiality of bodies providing audit and certification of all types of management systems.

Certification bodies operating to ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015 do not need to offer all types of management system certification.

Certification of management systems is a third-party conformity assessment activity and bodies performing this activity are therefore third-party conformity assessment bodies.

RELATED STANDARDS

A host of new standards, considered to be parts of ISO/IEC 17021, have been published to add to the generic competence requirements in ISO/IEC 17021 for specific types of management systems.
 
These include:

• ISO/IEC TS 17021-2 for environmental management systems

• ISO/IEC TS 17021-3 for quality management systems

• ISO/IEC TS 17021-4 for event sustainability management systems

• ISO/IEC TS 17021-5 for asset management systems

• ISO/IEC TS 17021-6 for business continuity management systems

• ISO/IEC TS 17021-7 for road traffic safety management systems.

There are also some additional standards that include specific competence requirements:

• ISO TS 22003 for Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS)

• ISO/IEC 27006 for Information Security Management Systems (ISMS)

• ISO 28003 for Supply Chain Management Systems (SCMS)

• ISO 50003 for Energy Management Systems (EnMS)