Enhance your ethical practices with SMETA

Assess and improve your working conditions and environmental performance with the world’s most widely used social audit.

SMETA (Sedex Members’ Ethical Trade Audit) is a world-leading social auditing methodology. It was created by Sedex members to assess and maintain responsible business practices in supply chains. It provides a clear overview of working conditions and environmental performance which businesses use to understand and improve their operations.

WHY BUSINESSES NEED AUDITS

Compliance with international legislation and industry codes of conduct can be difficult to navigate and keep up to date with.

Having a separate supply chain audit, environmental audit, and labour audit to ensure you cover everything can be costly and time-consuming.

SOLUTIONS

Demonstrate ethical practices in your operations and supply chain across labour rights, health and safety, environmental impact, and business ethics.
Assess sites against both local law and the ETI Base Code, ensuring the highest protections for workers are recognised.
Identify actions needed to improve suppliers' impacts on workers and the environment

 WHY CHOOSE SMETA?

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Extend understanding
SMETA is based on internationally recognised standards, including the ETI Base Code, International Labour Organisation Conventions (ILO), and national labour laws.

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Standardised assessments
SMETA's standardised approach across countries and industries enables consistent assessment, as well as comparison of suppliers worldwide.

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Increase transparency
SMETA increases supply chain transparency by covering labour, health, environment, and ethics compliance, providing a holistic view of potential risks.

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Reduce costs
With SMETA, one audit can be shared with multiple customers. SMETA's integration with the Sedex Platform makes it quick and easy to combine audit findings with other Sedex tools, such as risk assessments or self-assessment questionnaires.

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Mitigate risk
Assess and monitor higher-risk suppliers on their performance over time with detailed reporting on non-compliance issues and the strength of site-level management systems.

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Improve performance
Instead of focusing on passing or failing, SMETA audits provide Corrective Action Plans to help improve supplier performance and resolve issues found in the audit, ensuring continual progress across your supply chain.

FAQs

Is SMETA available in languages other than English?
SMETA is available in English, Spanish and Mandarin. Where reports and Corrective Action Plan Reports are needed in a language other than English, these should be dual language and must include English.
My customer has requested a SMETA audit of my site - what do I need to do next?

Speak to our team about your options to find a solution which best fits your business needs.

If you are already a member our e-Learning module ‘You are going to be audited – steps and SMETA guidance for suppliers’ is available for all supplier members. This module will guide you through the steps you can follow to prepare for a SMETA audit. Please login to the Sedex Platform to access Sedex e-Learning.

What guidance is available for SMETA users?

There are a series of guidance documents to help you understand what to expect from a SMETA audit, actions you can take to prepare for your audit, and how to address any non-compliances (NCs).

These detailed guidance documents are available specifically for Sedex members via Sedex e-Learning.

Overview documents can be found here:

English


Chinese

Thai

Vietnamese

Bahasa Malaysia

Which audits does Sedex accept?

The Sedex Platform will accept any type of  third-party ethical audit:

Third-party audit: Audits of organisations undertaken by an independent certification body or registrar or similar third-party organisation. This is the most commonly used audit for most Sedex members and is widely accepted as more impartial.

This audit can be useful. However, it is important to check your customer’s requirements before committing to a particular audit.

Check local law

You can check the law for your region on the NATEX Database – a database of national labour, social security and related human rights legislation maintained by the ILO’s International Labour Standards Department. Some auditing companies may also provide this service for you.

Further resources

The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) has some useful resources on ethical and social auditing.

Do I have to be a Sedex member to share my SMETA audit with my customer?

Only businesses that are Sedex Members are permitted to have a SMETA audit (either full or follow-up) conducted by an Affiliate Audit Company. Businesses that want a SMETA audit need to be registered and have an active account on the Sedex platform. For your audit to be uploaded to the Sedex platform, you must first be a member.

Speak to our team today to find out about the best membership option for your business.

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