Environmental and Industrial Biology The EIB laboratory at CABI has been UKAS accredited since 1984. This accreditation entails an annual assessment against the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2005 to demonstrate our competence, impartiality and performance capability. The management system requirements in this standard meet the principles of ISO 9001:2000. Our confidential services are available to both commercial and domestic customers from the UK and overseas with the scope of our accreditation covering: • Mould growth testing: we specialize in challenging items to mould growth against any recognized published standard or to a customer’s own specification. These tests give an indication of an item’s susceptibility to fungal growth and thus allow an evaluation of its performance in the environmental conditions under which it could be employed. Problems with mould can occur on any items in the home or workplace (G. Godwin-Keene)
• On-site sampling: we are the only UK laboratory accredited by UKAS for on-site mould contamination testing. We investigate fungal contamination problems found in a wide range of domestic and workplace environments. Our customers include insurance companies, building companies, hospital trusts, composters, food manufacturing plants, and archives and museums. • Fuel testing: based on the method produced by the Institute of Petroleum, this quantifies fungal and bacterial contamination of aviation and marine fuels. In this aspect of our work we have a close working relationship with Conidia Bioscience Ltd, based on-site at Egham. In addition, we offer an isolation and identification service to which customers submit contaminated samples for analysis. During 2011 the demand for our Fungal Sampling Kit (FSK) increased, proving very popular with environmental consultants. The FSK provides the customer with everything they need to carry out several methods of sampling fungal contamination, before returning the kit to CABI for analysis. CABI: S. Lawrence (s.lawrence@cabi.org) and G. Godwin-Keene (g.godwin-keene@ cabi.org).t
Mould growth tests assess the ability of any material to support fungi (G. Godwin-Keene)
Mould growth tests can highlight a potential fungal problem for manufacturers (G. Godwin-Keene)
Flood damage can cause severe mould problems to building structures (G. Godwin-Keene)
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CABI annual Report