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Social Accountability Audits SAA

A new buzz word is in the market place: CSR. It stands for Corporate Social Responsibility. More and more consumers are choosing to deal with companies they perceive to be socially responsible. More businesses recognize CSR is here to stay. It is not merely an ethics issue, but a fundamental part of a business to maintain consumer goodwill. Environmental audits are finding their way onto the annual reporting process. Many UK companies run programmes on CSR, for example: the Tesco ´Computers for Schools´ is now in its twelfth year; Yorkshire Tea has a Tree for Life programme; there is the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade; and, the HSBC Earthwatch programme with the WWF. All these are fairly overt projects.

The risk to your business comes from third parties who do not hold CSR dear to their heart or merely pay lip services to it. There are still abuses in child labour laws in the Far East, waste management companies are still dumping your products where they should not, and sub-contractors, agents and third party suppliers are still breaching ethical guidelines and the laws of various countries. All in your name. They are also very devious in how they carry out their activities. Their methods are not normally found by conventional audits or site visits by company representatives.

You need someone with the skill and resources of an investigator with international capability. As more western based companies are relocating part of their operations to the Indian sub-continent or the Far East, so the risks increase. A call centre set up in India needs the staff screened. A supply company in Hong Kong may be linked to the Triads. So who will carry out the due diligence, or check on the supply chain for child labour or inferior parts?

We can, and have, carried out these types of audits to protect the good name and brands of clients.

Case Study - all is not what it seems.

Company A, a major US pharmaceutical, had certain products made under licence in Denmark. Both companies operated to the highest standards of integrity. But one of the products started showing up with notes inside saying 'Made by Slave Labour'. $3m worth of product were held up while we investigated. It transpired that the Danish company sub-contracted part of the packaging under a CSR policy of helping the community by giving work to those in rehabilitation. It was tightly controlled, but what they failed to identify was that the sub-contracting company was being paid twice, the second time by the government under a job allowance scheme. To the packers it was slave labour, thus the notes. One greedy contractor put a good companies name at risk.

What can we do for you

We will carry out an SAA on your vendor, service provider, sub-contractor etc., to determine how vulnerable your business and reputation is. The Audit will generally be in two parts:

Part 1 - an open visit and audit at the vendor's site to establish what is taking place. This will not always provide clear answers as vendors often keep their own location 'clean' but carry out adverse activities through a third party. However, this is an important stepping stone to Part 2 - to understand the vendor's business and what he is doing and who is he doing it with.

Part 2 - an off-site investigation using information gleaned during Part 1, together with additional resources to identify third party activity and what is being done in your name. This phase is normally where the answers come from.

For further information do contact us.