Minutes of the Certification Criteria Committee - 7 November 2007
The Criteria Committee met for the first time by telephone. Present were Barbara Hanley, Sebastien Humbert, Manuele Margni, Sean McGinnis, Rita Schenck and Bo Weidema.
After introductions, the committee went over the charge. The committee is to develop criteria for a low level and a high level certification for LCA professionals, with a goal of offering the first certifications at the next InLCA meeting in October 2008.
It was noted that not everyone was interested in a low-level certification.
We had a lively discussion on what LCA professionals should know. There was agreement that the low level certification should represent college/university-level education. There was some discussion of the terminology: in the USA a college level education is equivalent to a University level education in Europe and elsewhere.
There was some question about the non-LCA specific educational requirements, e.g. knowledge of environmental science. For the moment the committee thought we should focus on LCA specific knowledge.
Bo Weidema provided a list of learning targets for entry-level and high level students. After some discussion it was agreed that the certification for a low level certification corresponded to the high level in this document. The low level certification should be newly-minted graduates ready for entry-level jobs, who have the knowledge to perform LCAs. The high level certification should represent those who have been working in the field for some time, and can prove their ability.
There was some discussion about how one could prove a level of knowledge. Testing, submission of work and work history, and submission of transcripts are all possibly ways to do this.
The committee decided to focus on the entry level certification first, while keeping track of the high level certification comments and ideas that come up during discussion.
Everyone is invited to send lists of learning objectives to Rita at rita@iere.org. She will organize all of them into one document and send them to the committee prior to the next meeting, which should be in about a month, and monthly thereafter. Rita will also set up the next meeting in the same fashion as the last.
To summarize, some important decisions were made.
• The committee will focus on the entry-level certification first;
• Initial work will focus on LCA-specific knowledge;
• Everyone is invited to submit learning objectives immediately;
• Meetings will be monthly.