Toy story
The relatively new field of social compliance has created an urgent need for international certification of social auditors. As market businesses become more global, customers more aware and legal requirements more stringent, the toy industry is keen to demonstrate its support for this emerging trend. Jonas Astrup explains why a system of universal standards is the key to positive progress
A toy is an emotional product. We all remember the toys we played with as a child. The fact that toys are so closely associated with childhood memories instils in consumers an expectation that toys must be manufactured in a safe and ethical manner, perhaps to an even greater extent than for other products.
Toy companies around the world have long been committed to living up to these consumer expectations, and in 1996 the International Council of Toy Industries (ICTI) launched the ICTI CARE process, built around a comprehensive code of conduct. It is the international toy industry’s ethical manufacturing programme, aimed at ensuring safe and worker-friendly environments in toy factories worldwide. Social audits play a key role for the toy industry in achieving this goal.
Today, over 750 toy factories and 230 toy brands and retailers are enrolled in the ICTI CARE process. This means that thousands of social audits are being conducted every year by the six firms that have so far been accredited according to ICTI CARE process standards. The most important issue in selecting an audit company is whether it can meet two key criteria: that it is competent and that it is independent, meaning the auditors can have no political or company affiliation.
A social compliance audit is a systematic and independent external assessment conducted by a trained social auditor applying a specific standard, such as the ICTI code. The results are part of the information used to assess conditions in a factory.
As in financial auditing, the role of a social auditor is to express an opinion on the reliability of the information provided. Social auditors do not evaluate the social values of a company’s performance, just as financial auditors don't pass judgments on the adequacy of a company’s level of earnings.
Making compliance more efficient
Most factories supply more than one customer and even have customers from many different sectors. This means that some factories are audited up to 50 times a year, while other factories may only be audited once every second or third year. This is obviously not an efficient way of managing time and resources of factories, brands or retailers. As a consequence, over the last few years there has been a strong move towards converging social compliance systems as a way of enhancing their efficiency and avoiding duplication.
Currently, a number of leading global retailers are exploring the possibility of converging their individual systems as a more efficient way of ensuring good labour conditions for workers in supplier factories. Since toys are distributed through many different channels at retail level, it is only natural that the toy industry is a prime mover at the heart of this convergence process.
At the same time, a wide range of production methods and materials goes into toy manufacturing, including plastic, metal, wood, paper, print, electronics and textiles. Thus the experience gained in the toy industry can be easily applied in other sectors and industries.
The ICTI CARE process has developed a very successful training programme that all auditors must undergo in order to conduct ICTI CARE audits. This scheme ensures consistent, high quality audit reports. For the time being, no other sector’s social compliance auditing is as organized as the toy industry’s, although there are quite a few other initiatives that cover textiles, sporting goods, and electronics, along with many single company initiatives, and they also each train their own auditors.
A universal standard
As the trend towards convergence continues, it becomes increasingly important to be able to compare audit results across regions, sectors, schemes and audit companies. There is a need for a neutral international certification standard for social auditors that will make it possible to compare audit results.
While business has substantial experience with auditing in other fields such as financial auditing, we have not fully established yet the norms and means to certify social auditors. Certification of social auditors is essential to the ICTI CARE process, which relies on accurate, competent and consistent auditing to make sure that toys around the world are manufactured ethically.
For these reasons, the ICTI CARE process welcomes initiatives such as IRCA's social systems auditor programme, which sets the standard for third party certification of supplier approval programmes through the certification of the different categories of auditors and by developing and promoting good auditor training and auditing best practice.
About the author
Jonas Astrup is director operation Europe for the ICTI CARE process. For more information on the ICTI CARE process visit www.icti-care.org
For more information about IRCA’s social systems auditor programme, visit http://www.irca.org/certification/certification_10.html
