EICC-GeSI Auditor
The Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition, Inc (EICC) and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) are non-profit organizations composed of members of the information and communications technology (ICT) industries collaborating to promote social and environmental responsibility and shared efficiencies in the global electronics supply chain. Through their joint efforts, they are committed to upholding strong standards for labor, ethics, health and safety, environmental impact, and management systems in the supply chain. GeSI and the EICC have introduced a common audit program intended to save suppliers and EICC and GeSI members the time and expense of multiple audits. Suppliers are audited once and can share the findings with all EICC and GeSI member companies.
The IRCA EICC-GeSI Auditor Programme
An element of the EICC-GeSI initiative is a common approach to auditing and enhanced competence of auditors. IRCA has been engaged as a partner to provide a certification and regulatory framework for the training that auditors receive and the certification of auditors who operate in this industry sector. The purpose of this EICC-GeSI Auditor Programme is to provide confidence that auditors certified to it are competent to audit.
The IRCA EICC-GeSI Auditor Certification program offers certification at three grades (Provisional Auditor, Auditor and Lead Auditor) and within two scopes (Labor & Ethics, and Environmental, Health & Safety).
Note: At this time IRCA is only accepting applications for the Labor & Ethics Scope and only the EICC-GeSI Labor & Ethics Lead Auditor course is available. EICC have stated that, “beginning January 2011, audit teams performing EICC-GeSI Validated Audits must be lead by an auditor who has successfully completed the IRCA certified EICC-GeSI Labor & Ethics Lead Auditor course and have either achieved or applied for IRCA EICC-GeSI Lead Auditor certification under the Labor & Ethics scope. Until the IRCA EICC-GeSI Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) Lead Auditor course is available, EHS auditors will continue to be approved by the EICC Validated Audit Program Manager. The requirement for all EHS auditors to be certified will become effective one year after the course is launched. Note that the IRCA EICC-GeSI Environmental, Health & Safety Lead Auditor course is planned to be available by the end of quarter 1, 2012.”
EICC have nominated Verite as the training provider for this programme. A listing of upcoming courses can be found at www.verite.org.
The EICC Code of Conduct
The EICC Code of Conduct establishes standards to ensure that working conditions in the electronics industry supply chain are safe, that workers are treated with respect and dignity, and that business operations are environmentally responsible. The EICC Code of Conduct encourages broad adoption of CSR best practices by all ICT companies and suppliers through guidelines for performance and compliance with critical CSR policies. The EICC Code of Conduct is the primary reference document for the EICC-GeSI Audit Criteria. EICC-GeSI provides tools to audit compliance with the code, and helps companies report progress.
Reference Standards
- The EICC-GeSI Auditor Programme is based on the following key standards:
- Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (current version)
- EICC-GeSI Validated Audit Process (VAP) audit criteria (current version)
- EICC-GeSI VAP Audit Operations Manual (current version)