On February 16, 1995, state and federal officials established the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference (NELAC) as a standard setting organization. However, NELAC in its original structure, did not meet the definition of a voluntary consensus standards body. In 2006, The NELAC Institute (TNI) was formed to continue the efforts of NELAC, but as a voluntary consensus standards body. TNI is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to foster the generation of environmental data of known and documented quality through an open, inclusive, and transparent process that is responsive to the needs of the community. Members of the organization include individuals from laboratories, data users, federal and state agencies and anyone interested in promoting environmental data of known and documented quality.

TNI’s laboratory accreditation standard (Volume 1) uses ISO/IEC 17025 as its basis. There are some major differences between ISO/IEC 17025 and TNI’s standard. ISO/IEC 17025, General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories, was developed for laboratories to use “in developing their management system for quality, administrative and technical operations.” All of the language from ISO/IEC 17025 is contained in Module 2 of TNI’s standard, Quality Systems General Requirements. TNI’s standard contains 6 additional Modules, one focused on Proficiency Testing, while the other five provide detailed technical requirements for Asbestos, Chemical, Microbiological, Radiochemical, and Toxicity testing.

TNI Compared to ISO 17025 can be found at:

https://www.accustarlabs.com/public/inline-files/AR-TNIstandardsISO-2-23-18.pdf