London, September 1, 2015
The Association for Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA) was created today to ensure the professionalism, consistency and credibility of individual auditors and organizations performing independent social compliance audits, and to promote the use of independent social compliance audits, as a tool to advance workplace conditions for workers globally. The APSCA certification process will ensure auditors have consistent training, education, background checks, and demonstrated competencies that are standard requirements in comparable professional auditor associations.
Social compliance audits, often conducted by third party auditing firms, are the main tool used by multinational organizations to assess supply chain facilities’ and farms’ compliance with local and international expectations of labor conditions. A result of a year’s effort led by leading social compliance auditing firms, including Arche Advisors, Bureau Veritas, Intertek, SGS, TUV Rheinland, TUV Sud, and UL, APSCA comes as supply chains become increasingly global and while hundreds of thousands of social compliance audit reports are already in circulation.
“Today, working conditions around the world are increasingly scrutinized by consumers and media, and in which multinational organizations are expecting more transparency from their suppliers. However, social compliance audits performed to-date are inconsistent, conducted by too wide a range of provider,” said Roger Brockway of the International Federation of Inspection Agencies (IFIA), a major sponsor of APSCA.
“As challenges for workers around the world continue to evolve, and companies’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) needs continue to expand, it is more important than ever to bring consistency to the social compliance auditing industry. Companies and workers throughout the world rely on the oversight provided by social compliance audits, and APSCA endeavors to provide a leading level of assurance.”
APSCA welcomes applicants to register for the APSCA certification starting January 1st, 2016.
APSCA will be primarily focusing on members from the social compliance auditing industry before it includes other types of auditors such as internal auditor staff from brand or retailer organizations. Additionally, as the association expands,
APSCA is actively seeking an executive director to lead this initiative, and is also currently forming an executive and stakeholder board to be fully functional in the coming weeks.
For more information on how you can participate, contact director@theapsca.org
