SA 8000

Social Responsability Certification for Businesses

Our Services

Benefiting from its long experience through years of partnership with CISE, Certiquality provides certification services against the Social Accountability 8000 International Standard as an effective tool to guarantee the credibility and competence of the various actors involved in raising awareness, planning, implementing, managing, improving and assessing social responsibility systems.
Audit activities are conducted by highly qualified personnel and are intended for companies in all business sectors.
SA8000 certification is divided into four main areas that cover substantially all activities of the company: Self-assessment of the implementation of the requirements; Senior management commitment; Compliance with the 8 main SA8000 requirements; Management system.

How can we help your business?

Framework

The Social Accountability Management System is a tool that an organisation may voluntarily adopt to provide the market with evidence that its products or services are provided while respecting the workforce and paying special attention to the following requirements: non-recourse to forced or child labour; maintenance of health and safety conditions at work; freedom of association; absence of discriminatory or coercive practices; clearly defined working hours and fair pay. Assessment criteria apply to the certification, annual audits and triennial renewal audits (not included in the offer) and follow the international rules and regulations issued by Social Accountability Accreditation Services (SAAS), the accreditation body.

The SA8000 standard was prepared and officially published on 15th October 1997 by the Council on Economic Priorities Accreditation Agency (CEPAA) and subsequently updated by Social Accountability International (SAI). SA8000 is an acronym for "Social Accountability", i.e. social responsibility, and it is the first international standard based on this principle.

CISE (Centro per l’Innovazione e lo Sviluppo Economico) is accredited by SAAS for SA8000 certification and founded the Network Lavoro Etico, of which CERTIQUALITY is a member and as such can offer the above certification services.

Recipients

Applicable across all business sectors defined by the European co-operation for Accreditation (EA) regardless of the size and the geographical location of the organisation

Your Benefits

Enhances your company’s status as a provider of goods or services.

Provides international recognition through the SA8000 register (www.saasaccreditation.org).

Ensures that your company’s personnel management is in compliance with applicable law.

Constantly improves the performance of your staff.

Enhances both internal and external confidence in your organization, from employees to manufacturers, retailers, consumers and other interested parties.

The certification process

The main stages of the certification process are :

An optional preliminary audit to assess the situation of your company with respect to the requirements of the SA8000 standard. A gap analysis will identify your company’s strengths and potential areas for improvement;
Voluntary participation in the SAWNET web-platform, the Social Accountability Watch (S.A.W.), which is an instrument to raise awareness and give evidence of the socially responsible behaviour of organisations and actively involves stakeholders;

The certification process includes two on-site audits:

stage 1, which assesses the readiness of your organisation in terms of planning for the SA8000 scheme and
stage 2, which assesses the status of the system’s implementation;
issuance of the certificate;
semi-annual surveillance audits;
1 unannounced semi-annual surveillance audit per triennial period.

Certiquality can perform integrated audits combining the SA8000 standard with the main international standards (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, product certification).