Course 06 of 20 · Biofuels and SAF Desk Academy

Certification & Chain of Custody

Stage B, Supply, evidence and acceptance. Level 3 of 10.

Voluntary and regulatory certification scheme mechanics and the custody models that carry sustainability characteristics along a supply chain.

129 chapters · 11 modules · every chapter one 8 to 10 minute explainer · builds on: Course 02, Course 04, Course 05

Enrol or enquire See the 129 chapters
How a chapter is delivered

One chapter is one idea taken to the point of use

Each chapter covers one idea to the point where you can use it, and comes two ways: a narrated explainer, and a deep dive audio discussion of around thirty minutes that works the same material at depth.

Self-paced throughout, and the same chapters can be taught as a cohort. Chapters run in order: each one assumes only what the chapters before it taught, and capability belonging to a later course is named and deferred rather than half-covered.

Curriculum

11 modules · 129 chapters

Open any module for its full chapter list, in teaching order.

M0 The Evidence That Travels With the Fuel Ch 1-10
  1. A Litre of Fuel and the Claim Attached to It
  2. What a Sustainability Attribute Is Made Of
  3. Why the Molecule Carries No History
  4. The Obligated Buyer's Question and Who Can Answer It
  5. Certification, Verification and Accreditation Pulled Apart
  6. How a Private Standard Comes to Satisfy a Public Rule
  7. The Working Vocabulary of a Certification Desk
  8. Where Certification Enters a Feedstock Purchase
  9. Material That Sells Uncertified and Why
  10. The Shape of the Subject and What Sits Outside It
M1 Who Certifies, Who Audits, Who Recognises Ch 11-21
  1. The Scheme Owner and What It Actually Owns
  2. A Standard and Its Subsidiary Documents
  3. The Certification Body That Signs the Certificate
  4. Accreditation and the Question of Who Checks the Checker
  5. Scheme Approval of a Certification Body
  6. The Auditor as a Named Individual
  7. Independence, Rotation and the Conflict Nobody Declares
  8. The Regulator Behind a Privately Run Assurance System
  9. How a Standard Gets Revised and Who Votes
  10. ISEAL Membership and What a Credibility Claim Rests On
  11. Reading a Scheme's Document Set for the First Time
M2 The Scheme Landscape and How Recognition Works Ch 22-34
  1. Why No Single Scheme Covers Every Chain
  2. Recognition as a Grant With an Expiry Date
  3. The Scope of a Recognition and the Gap It Leaves
  4. One Scheme, Several Variants for Several Destinations
  5. ISCC as a Multi-Variant Scheme, Examined
  6. RSB and a Risk-Based Standard Architecture
  7. REDcert, SURE and the National-Origin Scheme Pattern
  8. Commodity Roundtables Feeding a Fuel Chain
  9. The Sustainable Biomass Program and the Solid Fuel Route
  10. CORSIA Eligible Fuel Certification and ICAO Approval
  11. Certification Inside a National Programme: RenovaBio
  12. When a Recognition Lapses, Narrows or Is Renewed
  13. Choosing a Scheme for a Chain You Do Not Control
M3 Scope, the Certified Unit and the Route to a Certificate Ch 35-47
  1. The Certified Operator Is Not the Certified Company
  2. Drawing the Boundary Around a Site
  3. Multi-Site Certification and the Central Office
  4. Group Certification and the Smallholder Supply Base
  5. Declaring Your Supply Chain Role
  6. Point of Origin and the First Gathering Point
  7. Collecting Points for Waste and Residue Streams
  8. The Processing Unit as a Certified Role
  9. Traders With Storage and Traders Without
  10. The Last Certified Party Before the Obligated Sale
  11. Product Scope: Which Materials a Certificate Covers
  12. The Self-Assessment Before an Auditor Arrives
  13. Application, Contract and Getting an Audit Booked
M4 Inside the Audit Ch 48-60
  1. What an Auditor Is Actually Testing
  2. The Management System Description as Primary Exhibit
  3. Risk Assessment and the Audit Intensity It Sets
  4. The Desk Review Before Anyone Travels
  5. The Opening Meeting and the Day That Follows
  6. Physical Inspection of Tanks, Lines and Weighbridges
  7. How the Document Sample Is Drawn
  8. Tracing One Consignment Backwards, Worked
  9. Interviewing the People Who Do the Work
  10. Auditing a Group: a Sample Within a Sample
  11. Remote and Hybrid Audits and Their Blind Spots
  12. The Closing Meeting and the Findings You Hear First
  13. The Audit Cycle: Initial, Surveillance, Recertification
M5 The Certificate and Its Life Cycle Ch 61-71
  1. Reading a Certificate Line by Line
  2. The Certificate Number and the Public Register Behind It
  3. Validity, Expiry and the Lapse That Breaks a Chain
  4. Checking a Counterparty's Status Before You Buy
  5. Suspension and the Material Already in Transit
  6. Withdrawal and the Retrospective Question
  7. Leaving One Scheme for Another
  8. Certification Through a Corporate Transaction
  9. Holding Two Schemes at One Site
  10. Add-On Modules and Claims Beyond the Base Certificate
  11. A Certificate Register for a Supplier Book
M6 The Chain of Custody Models Ch 72-84
  1. What a Custody Model Decides
  2. Identity Preserved: One Source, One Stream
  3. Segregation: Certified Material Kept Apart
  4. Mass Balance as a Custody Model
  5. Why Mass Balance Needs a Boundary and a Window
  6. Controlled Blending and the Proportional Claim
  7. Book and Claim as a Custody Model
  8. The Four Models Compared on What a Buyer Receives
  9. Which Model the Scheme Permits and Which the Rule Requires
  10. RSPO's Four Supply Chain Options, Examined
  11. Conversion Factors and the Claim Across a Reaction
  12. Co-Products and the Attribute That Has to Split
  13. The Model Downgrade Along a Chain
M7 Custody Models Applied Along a Chain Ch 85-96
  1. A Used Cooking Oil Chain From Kitchen to Collector
  2. Aggregation and the Point Where Identity Is Lost
  3. Third-Party Terminal Storage Under Mass Balance
  4. A Rail Movement Between Two Certified Operators
  5. Tolling at an Uncertified Facility
  6. Co-Processing Inside a Mineral Oil Refinery
  7. Blending Into a Finished Fuel at the Depot
  8. Cross-Border Handovers and Scheme Acceptance
  9. Importing Material Certified Under a Different Scheme
  10. Reading a Whole Chain for Its Weakest Link
  11. An Uncertified Intermediary Breaks the Chain
  12. Rebuilding Custody After a Gap
M8 Evidence at Each Handover Ch 97-107
  1. The Incoming Material Record
  2. The Outgoing Material Record
  3. What a Scheme Requires on a Transfer Document
  4. Self-Declarations for Waste and Residue Origin
  5. Classifying a Stream as Waste, Residue or Co-Product
  6. Quantity Evidence: Weighbridge Tickets and Tank Dips
  7. Auditing Your Own Suppliers
  8. Retention Periods and Where Evidence Actually Lives
  9. From Paper to Database: the Digital Evidence Trail
  10. Reconstructing a Handover Nobody Documented
  11. The Evidence File a Counterparty Will Ask For
M9 Integrity, Non-Conformity and Sanction Ch 108-117
  1. Non-Conformity Grades and What Each One Triggers
  2. Corrective Action Plans and Closure Evidence
  3. The Integrity Programme a Scheme Runs on Itself
  4. Integrity Audits and Unannounced Visits
  5. Sanctions Against a Certified Operator
  6. Sanctions Against a Certification Body
  7. Complaints and the Route an Outsider Has
  8. Public Disclosure of a Sanction and Its Market Effect
  9. Your Supplier Is Sanctioned Mid-Contract
  10. The Argument Over Private Assurance Policing Itself
M10 Operating Certified: Contract, Cost and Limits Ch 118-129
  1. The Certification Warranty in a Feedstock Contract
  2. Allocating the Risk That Certification Fails
  3. Remedies When a Claim Collapses After Delivery
  4. What Being Certified Actually Costs
  5. Staffing the Certification Function on a Small Desk
  6. Planning the Audit Calendar Around the Trading Year
  7. Preparing for an Audit Without Stopping the Business
  8. A Worked Certification Situation, Part One: Mapping the Chain
  9. A Worked Certification Situation, Part Two: The Audit Finding
  10. A Worked Certification Situation, Part Three: The Commercial Call
  11. What Certification Cannot Prove
  12. Where the Custody Thread Continues

The brochure gives each of these 129 chapters a paragraph on what it covers and what you can do once you have worked through it.

This is course 6 of twenty

It stands alone, and it is also the entry point to the Biofuels and SAF Desk Academy pathway.

Enrol or enquire See the whole pathway