ISO 14034 is the international standard that sets out how an independent verifier confirms a performance claim made about an environmental technology.
Its first edition, published in 2016 and confirmed in 2022, sets out the process called environmental technology verification, usually shortened to ETV.
A vendor states a performance figure for a new sorter, and the buyer has no way to tell whether to believe it. ISO 14034 is the agreed way of finding out.
A verification statement does not say a technology is good, green or legal. It says one measured claim held up under the conditions written into the plan.
ISO 14034 in brief
Here are the facts worth having in front of you before the detail.
- Full title. Environmental management, environmental technology verification (ETV)
- Current edition. 2016, the first edition, published in November that year
- Status. Published, reviewed in 2021 and confirmed by ISO in 2022, so the 2016 text is the one to cite
- Type. A requirements standard for the verification process. A technology is verified against it, and nobody is certified
- What gets verified. A performance claim, the measurable results the applicant declares about the technology, not the company behind it
- European adoption. EN ISO 14034:2018, approved by CEN on 8 January 2018 without any change to the text
- Published by. ISO/TC 207/SC 4, the environmental performance evaluation subcommittee
- Length. 25 pages, three informative annexes included
The catalogue record, with the abstract and the review history, sits on ISO's own page for the standard.
What a verification confirms and what it leaves alone
The standard is careful with four words, and everything else in it follows from them.
| Term | What the standard means by it |
|---|---|
| Environmental technology | A technology that either delivers an environmental added value or measures something that indicates an environmental impact |
| Performance | A measurable result, backed by numbers |
| Performance claim | A statement of that performance, declared by the applicant, the organisation putting the technology forward |
| Verification | Confirmation through objective evidence |
Put together, environmental technology verification is the verification of an environmental technology's performance by a verifier. That is the standard's own definition, and every limit below follows from it.
A sorting line that pulls more plastic out of mixed waste is the first kind of environmental technology. An emissions sensor is the second.
Where the statement stops
The claim is pinned down before anyone tests anything. Clause 5.3 requires the performance to be written as parameters agreed with the applicant, each one quantitatively verifiable through testing, with numerical values that can be checked under set operating conditions.
The verification plan then has to use test conditions identical to those operating conditions. So the statement speaks to those parameters, at those values, under those conditions. Run the technology harder, colder or on a different feedstock and you are outside it.
What the statement never says
A verification statement never says three things. It never says the technology is approved, because no authority grants anything and a verifier only confirms a claim.
It never says the company is certified either. Certification is a different activity with a different standard behind it, and ISO 14034 contains no certificate.
And it never says the technology is legal. A statement that it meets applicable regulatory requirements is something the applicant supplies with its own application, if relevant, and the verifier does not verify it.
Who takes part in a verification
Four roles run through the document, and clause 3 names each of them.
The applicant
The applicant is the organisation proposing the technology. The standard's own examples are a technology developer, a manufacturer, a provider or a legally authorised representative.
It writes the performance claim, supplies the existing test data behind it and describes the technology and its intended use.
One condition sits in a note to the application clause. The technology has to be on the market already, or at a stage where nothing that affects its performance will still change before launch. A prototype still being redesigned is not ready.
The verifier
The verifier is the organisation that performs the verification, and unless the standard says otherwise every stage of the process is its job.
Clause 4.2 requires it to apply and demonstrate both this standard and ISO/IEC 17020, the conformity assessment standard for inspection bodies.
Accreditation bodies assess verifiers against that pair. ANAB, the ANSI National Accreditation Board in the United States, accredits verification bodies that meet ISO/IEC 17020 and ISO 14034 together.
The test body
The test body provides the setting, the equipment and the reporting for testing the technology, and its output is a test report describing the conditions and results of the testing. ISO/IEC 17025, the competence standard for testing laboratories, is the standard's other normative reference.
The interested parties
Interested parties are everyone affected by the result, and the standard's list runs from customers and users to investors, regulators and non-governmental organisations. The application review checks that the claim addresses what those parties need.
The part readers most often get backwards is which of these hands writes which document.
The arrow never runs straight from the applicant to the statement. Nothing the applicant writes becomes a verification until the verifier, a separate organisation, has checked it and written the plan, the report and the statement itself.
How a verification runs from application to statement
Clause 5 sets the process out in five stages, and the verifier carries each one unless the standard says otherwise. Below are the five stages in the order the document gives them.
- Application. The applicant describes the technology, its intended use and its market readiness, names the relevant alternative, states the performance claim with proposed parameters and numerical values, and attaches the existing test data behind it.
- Pre-verification. Verifier and applicant agree which performance parameters will be verified, and the verifier writes a verification plan naming both parties, describing the technology and listing each parameter, its value and how it will be checked.
- Verification. The verifier decides whether the existing test data can be accepted, has additional test data generated where it cannot, and confirms the performance against the plan.
- Reporting. Two documents come out. The verification report details the verification and its results, and the verification statement summarises them, which is the one a buyer usually sees.
- Post-verification. The standard closes with publication of the result and with the validity of the verification report and statement.
Two reviews sit at the door of that sequence. An administrative review checks that everything the application clause asks for is there.
A technical review checks that the technology meets the definition, that the claim addresses what interested parties need and that there is enough information to judge it.
Acceptance or rejection goes back to the applicant with reasons, and an application can fail either review.
Where a verification statement helps a producer
For a producer filing extended producer responsibility (EPR) returns, ISO 14034 matters in two places, and neither of them is the return itself.
As evidence behind a claim about a technology
If you make or sell the technology, the statement is objective evidence for one specific claim.
ISO 14021, the standard for self-declared environmental claims, asks every such claim to be accurate, verifiable, specific and substantiated.
The law pushes the same way, with one catch. Directive (EU) 2024/825, which member states apply from 27 September 2026, bans generic environmental claims unless the trader can show recognised excellent environmental performance.
The directive defines that through the EU Ecolabel, officially recognised ISO 14024 ecolabel schemes or top performance under other EU law. A verification statement is not on that list.
It backs a specific measured claim, such as a separation rate under stated conditions. It does not license a general word like green.
As a buying aid
The second place is procurement. A producer or a scheme choosing sorting, recycling or treatment equipment is one of the interested parties the standard names, and ISO's stated aim is that buyers can base a decision on verified rather than declared performance.
Take a near-infrared sorter. How cleanly it separates one plastic from another, at what throughput and on what input, is a performance claim in the standard's sense.
A verification statement is the document that says whether it held.
The honest limit
The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, names no ISO standard anywhere in its text and never mentions environmental technology verification.
ISO 14034 verifies a technology, not a pack, so it has no bearing on recyclability grades, on the technical documentation in Annex VII or on the EU declaration of conformity.
A claim about the packaging itself falls under Article 14 of that regulation, and its evidence lives in the Annex VII documentation.
It is not an EPR route either. A verified technology does not register a producer, report a tonne or change a fee.
There is no EU scheme behind it any more. The European Commission stopped running its own ETV programme in November 2022 and left only the protocols available for anyone who wants to use them.
Verification against certification and testing
Three routes get confused because all three end in a document from a third party, and the table below separates them.
| Route | What is checked and by whom | What the result says |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 14034 verification | One performance claim about one technology, by a verifier working to ISO/IEC 17020 and this standard | The claim held at the agreed values under the agreed conditions |
| ISO 14001 certification | An organisation's environmental management system, by a certification body | The system meets ISO 14001, which says nothing about how any one machine performs |
| Product testing | A product against a product standard's requirements, by a testing laboratory | A test report describing the conditions and the results of the test |
ISO 14001 is the one document in this family a company is certified to, and the certificate is about how the organisation manages its impacts, not about whether a given machine performs.
ISO 14034 borrows several definitions from ISO 14001 and does a different job with them.
Testing sits underneath verification rather than beside it. A test report is one of the inputs a verifier weighs, and the verification statement is the judgement on the claim, not the raw result.
Inside ISO, the standard sits in ISO/TC 207/SC 4, the environmental performance evaluation subcommittee, next to ISO 14031. That standard gives an organisation a method for evaluating its own environmental performance over time.
ISO 14034 does something narrower. It confirms one technology's claim once, for everyone else to rely on.
Frequently asked questions about ISO 14034
Below are the six questions producers ask most often about ISO 14034.
What is ISO 14034?
ISO 14034 is the international standard, published in 2016 and confirmed in 2022, that sets the principles, procedures and requirements for environmental technology verification. A verifier uses it to confirm a performance claim an applicant makes about an environmental technology.
Is ISO 14034 a certification?
No. A technology is verified against it, and the result is a verification statement about one claim under stated conditions. Nobody is certified, although accreditation bodies do assess verifiers against ISO 14034 together with ISO/IEC 17020.
Who carries out an ISO 14034 verification?
The verifier, an organisation that is not the applicant and that has to apply both ISO 14034 and ISO/IEC 17020. It plans the verification, weighs the test data and writes the verification report and the verification statement.
What edition of ISO 14034 is current?
The 2016 first edition. ISO reviewed it in 2021 and confirmed it in 2022, so the same text remains current, and Europe adopted it unchanged as EN ISO 14034:2018.
Is ISO 14034 required by EU packaging rules?
No. The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation names no ISO standard, and the standard verifies technologies rather than packaging. The European Commission also stopped running its own ETV programme in November 2022.
Can a producer use a verification statement in an environmental claim?
Yes, as evidence for a specific, measured claim about the technology, which is what ISO 14021 asks of a self-declared claim. It is not one of the routes Directive (EU) 2024/825 accepts for a generic claim of excellent environmental performance.
