Social audits from SGS measure your organization’s performance against a range of factors helping you to meet customer and consumer expectations.
Increasingly, business customers and consumers are differentiating brands – and making their purchasing decisions – on the basis of “ethical” factors. These cover an organization’s approach to: corporate social responsibility (CSR), compliance and code of conduct; ethical trading; human rights; labor regulations, including health and safety; and responsible production practices.
Using our network of highly skilled and experienced experts, SGS can measure your performance against these factors through a range of social audits:
- Social Responsibility: ISO 26000 is a Guidance document, though not an auditable standard, outlining social responsibility best practices, which allows organizations to measure performance in terms of sustainable development, the health and welfare of society, and legal compliance.
- amfori BSCI: amfori BSCI is a leading supply chain management system that supports companies to drive social compliance and improvements within the factories and farms in their global supply chains.
- Code of Conduct: SGS provides organizations with independent and impartial code of conduct audit services which can be aligned to local legislation, international norms or clients’ own Codes.
- Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI):Representing ethical best practice, the tri-partite ETI Base Code has been adopted by its members – and other retailers and brands.
- Initiative for Compliance and Sustainability (ICS):The French Federation of Retailers (FCD) designed the ICS scheme to encourage suppliers to comply with universal human rights principles, as well as with local labor regulations.
- SEDEX Member’s Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA):SEDEX helps organizations manage data on labor practices, health & safety, environment and business ethics in their supply chain. SMETA covers ETI Base Code principles and additionally reviews performance against human rights, land rights, responsible recruitment practices, the right to work of migrant workers, management systems implementation and the presence of sub-contracting and home working.
- Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP):WRAP is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion and certification of lawful, humane, and ethical manufacturing throughout the world.
Industry Codes
Increasingly industry bodies are collaborating to develop Codes of Conduct specifically targeting known issues in their sectors. The ICTI Care program for the toy industry, the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) for electronic industry and Responsible Jewelry Council certification are just a few such schemes that SGS works with.
Contact SGS to discover how we can measure your performance against a range of social audit factors.