Social Accountability International (SAI) e-Newsletter

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September 2011
 

1. SA8000 Approved by Dutch Public Procurement
2. Project Cultivar- Final Report Released
3. "Gender Equality is Smart Economics" - SAI & UN Women Team Up
4. SAI India Update: Training of Trainers
5. SAI President Speaks at Foretica Conference
6. Social Compliance- Moving from the Stick to the Carrot
7. DNV India Hosts SA8000 Foundation Course
8. Meet SAI's New Intern: Caroline Lewis
9. Highlights & Announcements

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Upcoming Training Events

Social Fingerprint Online Courses  

 - Getting Started in Your Company
- Building Your Internal Social Performance Team


Social Fingerprint Instructor Led Courses

Getting Started with Social Fingerprint   

October 28, Detroit, MI

 

SA8000 Online Auditor Training Courses

 - SA8000� Revision Course   

 

Auditor Training

Oct 17-21, Shenzhen, China  

 Oct 24-28, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam 

November 7-11, Portugal 

November 14-18, Istanbul, Turkey 


SA8000 Advanced  

Auditor Training

  Oct 26-28, Milan, Italy
Nov 14-16, Bucharest, Romania
December 7-9, New Delhi, India


Full training schedule 
 

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Top 3 News Stories

From the August 2011 Newsletter  

Responsible Business in India: "The Missing Variable"   

 

Events


How to Engage Supplier Social & Environmental Performance

Ethical Corporation, Oct 25-26 

(New York)   

 

Standards in South-South Trade and Opportunities for Advancing the Sustainability Agenda  

 TSPN, Nov 30- Dec 1  

(Washington, D.C.)  

 

Internships 

 

Administrative Intern- India  

Position starts immediately
Includes stipend
(Bangalore, India
)

SAI and SAAS

 Spring 2011 Internships
(New York, NY)
 

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Social Accountability International (SAI) is a non-profit, multi-stakeholder organization established to advance the human rights of workers by promoting decent work conditions, labor rights, and corporate social responsibility through voluntary standards and capacity building. 

 

SAI is headquartered in the United States with field representation in Brazil, China, Costa Rica, India, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Philippines, Switzerland, and UAE.


SAI- Human Rights at Work
Website: www.sa-intl.org

For newsletter inquiries contact:SAI Communications Manager- Joleen Ong, [email protected]

  

top1SA8000 Approved by Dutch Sustainable Public Procurement  

SA8000 will be integrated into the social criteria for public procurement 

 

SAI logo-ribbonSAI is pleased to announce that the SA8000 standard is part of the Dutch Government's social criteria program for sustainable public procurement. SAI is one of six approved initiatives. The  list includes two other ISEAL Alliance members - UTZ Certified and the Union for Ethical BioTrade- as well as Max Havelaar Foundation, Fair Flowers Fair Plants and the Fair Wear Foundation. 

The social criteria for sustainable public procurement will focus on compliance with international labour and human rights standards in the international supply chain. SAI is the first U.S.-based organization to be recognized for this social criteria, and is also the first initiative whose standard is accepted across all product groups. This is especially relevant, as the SA8000 standard certifies decent workplaces across all industries, in any country.  

This policy  offers a great opportunity for current SA8000 facilities. According to SAAS' certification statistics, there are an estimated 2,700 certifed facilities in the world,  employing over 1.5 million workers.  In addition, this is encouraging news for workplaces that are currently working to earn SA8000 certfication. Certified facilities get easier access to an annual  budget of 50 billion EUR >>Read more 

 

For more information, read the notification on the Dutch Procurement website (in Dutch), or contact SAI Europe Representative Edwin Koster at [email protected].

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Project Cultivar: Final Report on Impact Released 

In the challenging agricultural sector, Project Cultivar establishes a system for continuous improvement on the farm      

       

The results are in on SAI's Project Cultivar in Central America. In August 2011, SAI issued Project Cultivar's final report, chronicling its work to advance labor rights in the agricultural sector, in partnership with CIAC, INCAP, PASE and CDH, and supported by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Project Cultivar worked with 38 farms and factories in the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua and delivered training to over 4,000 workers, managers, and labor inspectors. This capacity building provided the infrastructure for ongoing multi-stakeholder dialogue in four principle ways: by increasing awareness of national labor laws, empowering workers to invoke their rights, increasing managers' capacity to comply with national labor law, and equipping government inspectors with tools to enforce regulations.

Additional measured impact on participating farms include:
  • 42% initiated or re-activated Joint Worker-Manager Committees to monitor health and safety
  • 55% installed first-aid kits for employees      
  • 28% implemented a system for registering and addressing workplace issues 
  • 44% reported an increase in complaints resolved at the farm level >>Read more  
View Project Cultivar's Final Report, or visit www.proyectocultivar.org.For more information, contact SAI Senior Manager, Matt Fischer-Daly at [email protected].

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"Gender Equality is Smart Economics"- SAI & UN Women to Develop UN Gender Equality Seal 

This new partnership will establish a strategy and implementation plan for the UN Gender Equality Seal (GES) as an auditable standard

 

In September 2011, SAI and UN Women established a partnership to develop a global implementation plan for the UN Gender Equality Seal. This new auditable standard and certification system will focus on gender equality in a company and its supply chain.  

 

After completing a pilot project earlier this year, UN Women decided to work with SAI to gain knowledge on establishing and managing a certification program. In addition, UN Women seeks to benefit from SAI's extensive experience in management systems for social performance and in working with companies to measure and improve their capacity.  

 

Maya Morsy, UN Women Country Coordinator in Egypt noted, "it is essential to ensure that the Gender Equity Seal is not only a certification that companies would aim to get, but it is a belief and a process that they would aim to implement. Partnering with SAI is essential to ensure that we are working in partnership with other certification process and we are adding a benchmark." >>Read more  

 

For more information, contact SAI Communications Manager, Joleen Ong at [email protected] 

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SAI India Update: 'Training of Trainers' in Gurgaon 

After a rigorous selection process for local trainers, the 'Training of trainers' classroom sessions begins in Gurgaon 

 On August 29 to September 2, SAI conducted the classroom 'Training of Trainers' (ToT) in Gurgaon. This 5-day intense classroom session is part of SAI's joint development partnership (PPP) "Scaling Up Responsible Business Initiatives in India." The sessions focused on the four focus areas for the India PPP: 1) Internal auditing for social performance; 2) Management systems for social performance; 3) Managing the supply chain for social performance; and 4) Workplace communications. SAI Lead Trainers Badri Gulur and Sanjiv Singh led the course, with extra support from SAI India Project Director Rishi Singh on the supply chain focus area. >>Read more 

Learn more about SAI's Development Partnership (PPP) in India at www.sa-intl.org/indiappp. For more information, contact Rishi Singh, India Project Director at [email protected].

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SAI President Speaks on Human Rights in the Supply Chain

Hosted by For�tica in Madrid, Alice Tepper Marlin Leads Presentation and Master Class on Human Rights in the Supply Chain 
 
SAI President Alice Tepper Marlin gives presentation, "Sourcing Globally, Thinking Regionally: CSR for a Global Supply Chain," on a panel that focused on international models and regional perspectives on sustainability
On September 20, For�tica, CSR Europe's Spanish national partner organization, hosted a conference in Madrid to launch the Enterprise 2020 Initiative in Spain. This initiative is supported by the European Commission and CSR Europe.

SAI President Alice Tepper Marlin spoke on a panel discussion that focused on international models and regional perspectives on sustainability. During her presentation, "Sourcing Globally, Thinking Regionally: CSR for a Global Supply Chain," she illustrated cases from SAI's global programs, including Project Cultivar in Central America, the Development Partnership (PPP) and RAGS program in India, and SAI's role in the WE Project in China with Tchibo GmbH.
>>Read more

For more information,
view the presentation from the master class, and Foretica's article about this event. For further information, please contact SAI Communications Manager Joleen Ong at [email protected] 

 

Social Compliance: Moving from the Stick to the Carrot

 At the ISSP Conference 2011 Craig Moss led a presentation titled: Social Fingerprint - Practical tools to improve social performance
Photo, from left: 1) ISSP Executive Director Marsha Willard stands with SAI's Craig Moss; 2) a presentation slide from the workshop; 3) conference attendees listen to and participate in the presentation.

On September 22, 2011, SAI's Director of Corporate Programs and Training Craig Moss spoke at the ISSP Conference 2011 in Portland, Oregon. Convening over 150 sustainability professionals from around the world, the conference focused on helping practitioners to integrate sustainability within their respective organizations.  

Mr. Moss' presentation focused on practical tools to achieve social compliance. His hour-long presentation gave an overview of SAI's work and activities to improve social performance in the supply chain, the complexities behind auditing for social compliance, and the development and impact of Social Fingerprint's process-based approach to improvement.

"We are seeing a new trend in supply chain management, which is to move from risk mitigation to competitive advantage," said Mr. Moss. "To achieve social compliance, you need to move from the stick to the carrot. Management systems need to be established for effective implementation." >>Read more  

For more information about this presentation, view the presentation slides from the event. You can also see what was tweeted through our conference hashtag, #SFatISSP or #ISSP2011. For further information, please contact SAI Director of Craig Moss [email protected]. 

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DNV India Hosts SA8000 Foundation Course  

   

On September 15, 2011 DNV India conducted a 1-day Foundation Course on SA8000 in Bangalore. 21 participants attended this course, representing various sectors including garment and apparel, mining, electronics, and manufacturing.

SAI thanks Prasun Kundu, DNV Global Head for SA8000certification for organizing and leading this course. Mr. Kundu received positive feedback from participants, and has scheduled another 1-day Foundation Course for Mumbai on November 3, 2011. >>Read more

For more information, contact SAI India Project Director Rishi Singh at [email protected].

 

Meet SAI's New Intern: Caroline Lewis 

Introducing our newest intern, Caroline Lewis, in her own words 
 
I am a qualified UK employment lawyer and moved to the U.S. 10 years ago. I branched out into the field of international labour rights and worked for two years at the ILO office for the United Nations in New York. At the ILO, I followed the work of the General Assembly and its various committees (on issues like child labour, the rights of indigenous people and discrimination against women), while at the same time pushing the ILO agenda. This was a fascinating first hand insight into the machinations of the UN. >>Read more

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Highlights & Announcements   

Participants of the SA8000 Basic Auditor Training course in New Delhi, India with SAI Trainers Sanjiv Singh and Badri Gulur. 20 participants, representing auditors, local companies, and certifying bodies, attended this 5-day course on September 12-16. [Source: Sanjiv Singh] 

Tchibo Receives Gold Award- Sustainable Retail Business 2011 The Verbraucher Initiative included Tchibo in its 'Sustainable Retail Business 2010' awards. It received a gold award in the textiles category, and a silver award in luxury food for its coffee. Congratulations! Read it (in German) @bit.ly/nW3Rma

ISEAL Alliance 2010 Report Published September 2011, this is ISEAL's first annual report, highlighting its work on the groundbreaking Impacts Code in 2010. Read it @bit.ly/p2H0de  
 
"Eileen Fisher- Socially Responsible Designer" SAI Corporate Program member Eileen Fisher, and its work with Social Fingerprint� Program was featured in this Fair Trader Journal blog post. Read it @bit.ly/pRGBxD

Brands Ethics Work Group- India On September 3, SAI India Project Director Rishi Singh met with BEWG, the association of international brands in India, to learn more about their work, and to introduce SAI's RAGS Project.
 
Tirupur Stakeholders' Forum On September 3, established by the Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA), Unions, NGOs, and the BEWG, this forum released a guidance document to help TEA members provide safe and healthy accommodation for their workers.
 

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