Fast facts & figures

• Established in 1901, BSI was the world's first national standards body
• The original BSI committee met for the first time on the day Queen Victoria died – 22 January 1901. One of the first standards it went on to publish was designed to reduce the number of sizes of tramway rails
• BSI's Kitemark™ has provided reassurance for over 100 years, and a GfK NOP survey of 1,000 UK adults in December 2010 showed that 72% recognize the BSI Kitemark and associate it with safe and reliable products and services. The first Kitemark was awarded to General Electric for Vitreous Enamelled Steel Reflectors for Lighting Fittings
• Together our clients account for 54% of the FTSE 100, 40% of the Fortune 500 and 24% of the Nikkei listed companies
• BSI is one of the world's largest independent certification bodies for management systems, with over 90,000 registered sites across the globe
• In 2012, BSI provided practical training for approximately 73,000 people worldwide on how to implement and operate standards
• The former UK Department of Trade and Industry (now known as the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) quantified standards as contributing £2.5bn annually to the UK economy.
• Of the world's top 25 global medical device manufacturers, 23 choose BSI as their Notified Body for CE marking certification against the EU directives
• BSI has been independently voted a UK Business Superbrand every year from 2003 to 2013 and its Kitemark from 2008 to 2013
• Entropy Software is used at over 20,000 locations and by more than 100,000 users to improve their management systems practices.
• The quality management systems standard, ISO 9001 – which started life at BSI in 1979 as BS 5750 – is now recognized as the world's most successful standard having been adopted by more than one million organizations in 178 countries.
• BSI developed a sustainable events standard (ISO 20121) for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games; the London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) was the first of its type to achieve certification.

Useful figures

• 70,000 clients operating in 150 countries
• 2,500 standards were published last year
• 2,900 members of BSI staff
• 14,909 Subscribing Members
• 10,000 Committee Members
• 7,000 standards projects
• 34,000 current British Standards
• 102,390 British Standards publications sold
• 90,000 business locations certified by BSI
• 25,038 business locations certified by BSI in Asia
• Ranked 1st in North American and UK certification markets
• 3,682 Kitemark licences
• 7,424 CE marking certificates
• 18 Notified Body status (under European Directives)