Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

We herewith inform you about updates and clarifications in the ISCC System. Please share this information with all relevant members of staff.

1. Final Report on Successful Pilot Audits of the ISCC EU Certification Approach for RFNBOs

ISCC participated in successful pilot audits for green hydrogen and derivatives organized by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO). For this purpose, ISCC developed an ISCC EU certification approach for Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin (RFNBO) based on the Renewable Energy Directive (REDII) and the corresponding draft delegated acts (draft version from May 2022). On 19 December 2022 the RVO published the report “Results of pilot audits against draft RED2 requirements for RFNBO in different certification schemes” authored by the certification body Quality Services BV (QS).

“To a large extent, the requirements in the draft RFNBO certification schemes are workable for companies and auditable for certification bodies.” –  QS, Results of pilot audits against draft RED2 requirements for RFNBO in different certification schemes, 2022, p. 17

ISCC will submit the ISCC EU RFNBO certification approach to the European Commission for recognition based on the recently adopted delegated acts on RFNBOs (see the EU press release dated 13 February 2023). Once recognized by the EC, the ISCC EU certification of RFNBOs will be possible.

2. ISCC Update Regarding the Union Database

According to a communication of the European Commission (EC), ISCC as a Voluntary Scheme (VS) is responsible for the onboarding of Economic Operators (EOs) holding an ISCC EU certificate into the Union Database (UDB). This onboarding into the UDB was scheduled to begin on 16 January 2023. Since then, ISCC has started to fulfill its responsibility in the onboarding process by registering individual EOs in the UDB.

Over the past few weeks, we have understandably received many questions from our system users about many issues, especially the onboarding process. Since many of these points were also still unclear to us, we had to discuss them with the EC to clarify the underlying processes and exact details. As we are now in the process of finalizing the onboarding process with the EC, we will provide a detailed explanation of the onboarding process within a week to all ISCC EU certified system users.

We would also like to reconfirm that ISCC will become a Service Provider (SP) once the UDB is fully operational and the organizational and legal requirements for SPs (e.g. on governance, IT security and data protection) have been clarified.

We would also like to once again highlight our continuous commitment to support the EC in every possible way in the development and testing of the UDB. From the very beginning of developing the UDB, ISCC has been an active participant in workshops and stakeholder meetings set up by the EC and has been in continuous discussions about the UDB, both with the EC and other stakeholders. In the past year, ISCC has further intensified its efforts as we address the UDB as a topic of utmost importance. We work very closely with the dedicated UDB team and the Policy Officers of the EC.

More information can be found at the ISCC website under Essential Information on the Union Database. There you can also participate in a survey on ISCC EU system users’ preferences for connecting to the UDB.

3. Clarification: Points of Origin Covered by Approaches Operated by Governmental Authorities

Based on an assessment, ISCC can recognise the equivalence of existing approaches operated by governmental authorities that ensure compliance with the waste and residue requirements under ISCC. For points of origins covered by such an approach this means that the respective Collecting Point does not need to receive and manage self-declarations from the supplying Points of Origin and the risk-based auditing of the Points of Origin as part of the certification process of the Collecting Point is generally not required (unless there is indication of non-conformity or fraud).

We herewith clarify that this approach can be both applied under ISCC EU and ISCC PLUS. Please see the ISCC Website for further information and a list of accepted approaches.