"An audit for one is an audit for all" - 25 members have now signed up to our joint principles on Mutual Recognition of audits, the latest newcomers being SAB Miller and McDonald’s. The audited supplier list for sharing between participating companies now contains close to 7000 records. Members are using the list to identify where audits have already been done, so that they can request suppliers to make these available, if they wish to, in order to avoid additional audits. Our 2012 target to cover 35% of participating members' audit needs through this list has already been exceeded by a number of companies who are covering between 40-50% of their audit needs through Mutual Recognition. This exercise is, of course, undertaken in strict compliance with anti-trust law. No information is shared which points to the customer-supplier relationship. AIM-PROGRESS works closely with the International Trade Center (ITC), a joint Agency of the WTO and the UN, who are helping with the benchmarking of standards and protocols through use of their Standards Map. The next round of Mutual Recognition, aiming at reaching 10,000 records in the joint list, will be launched in the autumn. For more information about how Mutual Recognition works please visit the relevant page on the AIM-PROGRESS website
