Home  >  Acceptance Criteria Development  >  Alternative Criteria Process

Alternative Criteria Process

January 2025

  • Items posted for public comment – Forthcoming

Schedule of Future Postings: Click here

Alternative ICC-ES Acceptance Criteria Process

The alternative process (i.e. alternative to the hearing process) provides an alternative to the presentation of proposed criteria at triannual hearings of the Evaluation Committee, with the intention of providing quicker approval of revised acceptance criteria. A criteria qualifies for the alternative process if in the opinion of the ICC-ES staff, the subject requires formal action by the Evaluation Committee.

The alternative process can also provide an option for public comment only, which can be used for preliminary criteria drafts to gather early public feedback prior to official approval.

The alternative criteria development process works this way:

  1. Every month, criteria being considered under the alternative process are posted to the ICC-ES website, where they are maintained for 30 days.
  2. Through e-mail, ICC-ES notifies evaluation report holders, and anyone else who has requested notification, that the criteria have been posted and are available for public comment.
  3. For criteria proposals aimed at committee approval, the members of the ICC-ES Evaluation Committee are sent ballots, asked to review the posted documents, and given 30 days to submit their ballots.
  4. At the end of the 30-day posting, committee ballots (if applicable) and public comments are reviewed by the ICC-ES staff. Possible outcomes for each criteria are:
      1. Committee approval, followed by posting of the approved document to the ICC-ES website.
      2. Revisions to the proposed criteria, and reposting under the alternative process either for comments only or for comments and reballoting by the Evaluation Committee.
      3. A decision by the staff to take the proposal to a future public hearing of the Evaluation Committee, if the response to the proposal, in the opinion of the staff, raises major issues that need to be addressed.

If you would like to be added to the e-mail list to be notified of criteria postings, click here.
Note: It is not necessary to resubmit your information at each new posting if you are currently receiving the notification e-mails.
If you would like to be removed from our e-mail list, click here.