Accreditation Body (AB)
An Accreditation Body authorizes Certification Bodies to certify a product or process according to a specific standard. All Certification Bodies have to be accredited by an authorized Accreditation Body. An Accreditation Body can be the standard required by the country of destination or the standard required by a national government body of the country of production (e.g. for organic cotton it is the EU-Reg in Europe, the National Organic Program (NOP) in the USA, and APEDA in India).