ETHICAL AUDITING

Ethical auditing provides an opportunity for companies to assess practice against labour standards as set out in the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) Base Code and local South African law. Employers are required to demonstrate their compliance with these standards and the ethical auditing process is implemented as a means to assess compliance. Visit http://www.ethicaltrade.org/.

Acert Africa provides a comprehensive and professional ethical auditing service to producers within the fresh fruit and wine industry. Over the course of the past 18 months, Acert Africa has conducted Ethical Trade audits on over 200 farms geographically spread throughout the major fruit production areas of the South Africa.

Acert Africa has earned widespread approval and recognition from retailers, the likes of which include major UK retailers, Tesco and Marks & Spencer.

What is the Acert Africa ethical auditing process?

Awareness raising: 
A one-day training course to familiarise producers with the Ethical Trade Base Code and the auditing process.

Pre-audit self assessment:
Clients carry out their own self assessment to check compliance with specified guidelines.

On site audit:
This is usually a day-long process involving meetings with management and workers, site inspections and report back meetings with management where good practice and any required improvements are discussed. Corrective action plans are put in place.

SEDEX and managing correction:
Once completed the audit report together with verification of action plans is loaded onto the SEDEX site. Acert Africa provides this service to its clients at no additional cost.

Continuous support:
Acert Africa advocates for sustainable ethical business practice and aims to facilitate this by offering on-going support to its client base in the form of policy guidance notes and its quarterly newsletter, The Lens.

• Increased morale
• Reduced absenteeism
• Increased productivity
• Increased profitability