Florida Home Builders Association Certified Ratings Program
St. John’s River Water Management District Florida Water Star Program
(Jointly the “Program”)
Code of Ethics
The Program Administrator, Certification Agencies and all Accredited Inspectors participating in the Program (Collectively, the “Participants”) agree to carry out their activities in accordance with the following principles of conduct.
Participants shall operate in a professional, independent and impartial manner in all testing, inspection and certification activities.
The Accredited Inspector shall carry out his or her work honestly and shall not tolerate deviations from the approved methods and procedures. Where approved test and inspection methods allow for judgment, estimates or ranges in measurements, the Accredited Inspector shall act in good faith to ensure that such judgment, estimates or ranges in measurements are not misused to report improper or misleading results.
The Accredited Inspector shall report data, test results and other material facts as observed and measured, shall not improperly change them, and shall only issue reports and certificates that correctly present the actual findings or results obtained.
The Participants shall avoid conflicts of interest, including providing services to any business, organization, individual, or entity, in which the Participant has a financial or commercial interest. If a Participant is acting as an employee, member, partner or representative of a business, organization, group, or entity, the Participant shall avoid providing services to a third party where the business, organization, group, or entity, has a financial or commercial interest in that third party.
The Participants shall treat all information received in the course of the provision of services under the Program as business confidential to the extent that such information is not already published, generally available to third parties or otherwise in the public domain.
The Participants shall prohibit the offer or acceptance of a bribe in any form, including the receipt of gifts, services, or benefits, in order to influence the determination of any test data, inspection results, or certification decision, related to the provision of services under the Program.
The Participants shall only make statements regarding the Program, including any comparisons with or references to competitors or their services, in a manner that is truthful and not deceptive or misleading or likely to mislead.
The Participants shall report violations of the Code of Ethics to the Program Administrator and work to support the business ethics and values embodied herein.
