One of the main drivers for launching AIM-PROGRESS was to enable mutual recogntion of ethical audits with the objective of reducing audit costs and fatigue. A simple spreadsheet through which member companies share supplier sites they have audited over the last three years - duly anonymised by the Secretariat - provides a central resource for participants to check whether a supplier they wish to audit has already undergone an assessment by another company, and which they might be ready to recognise. We are pleased to report that the latest list contains close to 16,000 supplier sites which are available for mutual recogniton of audits.
Of course mutual recognition can only work if audits are bazed on equivalent audit protocols - the AIM-PROGRESS benchmark is the SMETA 4 pillar audit. Given the increasing scope of member expectations for ethical audits AIM-PROGRESS is actively contributing to a review of SMETA to include more checkpoints, such as land rights, migrant labour, human trafficking, increased environmental and business integrity expectations. The updated SMETA protocol is expected for 2017.
But mutual recognitioon may also work for other aspects of supplier assurance. Discussions around sharing of non-audit supplier assessments (remote, not on site) are being held with a number of interested member companies. A new working group has been set up to scope out the value of sharing supplier assessments.
Want to learn more about how AIM-PROGRESS enables mutual recogntion? Pleas go to the relevant section on our website.
