‘Social Compliance has become an important factor’

In an exclusive interview with Sapna Dogra, Dr MVS Rao, country manager, Bureau Veritas Consumer Product Services (India) discusses various aspects of testing, inspection and quality in the newly emerging regime.

Has certifications/auditing increased over the last two years, especially in case of garment exporters?

Yes, such audits have increased over the past two years.

How do exporters feel about such audits?

Exporters have understood the importance of social compliance as one of the important factors especially for competing in a post-quota global market where competition is getting hotter and hotter. Many of them are engaging consultants for achieving compliance in all respects. Some who are pro-active are relocating or restructuring their factories in order to be compliant with all buyers’ SA norms.

What are the different types of SA audits?

Basically, there are three types of SA audits. They are: a) Certifying audits such as SA 8000, which are universal. One can get an SA 8000 certification similar to that of ISO 9001:2000. But many buyers or apparel association have there own codes of conduct. They may not exempt a factory from their own COC audits just because the factory has got SA 8000.

There are associations such as FLA (Fair Labour Association), WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Apparel Promotion), ETI ( Ethical Trading Initiative) etc. Some of the retailers/buyers become members of these associations. Each of these associations has its own unique audit tools/formats and report methodology.

There are independent buyers such as Disney, K Mart, etc having their own compliance criteria. What are the costs for these audits and certifications?

Like inspection services, auditing service is also charged on the basis of man-day rate. In addition to the man-day rate, travelling and accommodation expenses have to be reimbursed to the auditors on actuals. Man-day rates are variable depending on the size and number of locations of the factory, extent of involvement in documentation and report generation process.

Are social compliance audits uniform for the US and Europe?

Fundamentally, they are alike as social compliance norms are universal and do not vary from the US to Europe.

What kind of growth do you expect in such service in future?

SA audits are annual exercise and once a factory is audited, it is re-audited once a year. The growth is dependent on many factors. If more independent buyers start sourcing from the country then there can be growth to SA audits. But this demand may soon get saturated because, we cannot expect a continuous increase in number of independent buyers.