SMeta Audit

What does a SMETA 7 audit provide?

Passing the SMETA 7 ethical trade and Corporate Social Responsibility audit (2-pillar or 4-pillar) provides the following benefits:

  • Increase in sales. By obtaining SMETA recognition from SEDEX for ethical trade and social responsibility, your company is treated as a preferred supplier. Consequently, this strengthens customer trust and helps boost sales in line with your marketing strategy.
  • Enhanced reputation. A 2-pillar or 4-pillar SMETA audit allows you to clearly communicate to clients, suppliers and the wider community your commitment to ethical business practices and corporate responsibility.
  • Continuous improvement in ethics and social responsibility. The SMETA audit identifies improvement actions and opportunities directly linked to ethical trade and responsible practices, helping you strengthen governance, transparency and social performance across your operations.

How can we help you?

As social responsibility consultants, we can support you through our services:

  • SMETA Audit. We help you prepare to successfully pass the SMETA audit for 2-pillar or 4-pillar assessments. To do so, we assist you with:
    • Registering on SEDEX and completing the SMETA questionnaire. We also help you choose the certification body that best fits your needs.
    • Implementing SMETA procedures and integrating them into your existing management system. We know how to align SMETA requirements with your ISO 9001 quality certificate, ISO 14001 environmental management system, or ISO 45001 health and safety standard.
    • Implementing any SMETA requirements that are not yet in place, in a simple and agile way through our methodology based on Microsoft 365.
    • Conducting an internal audit prior to the certification audit. This ensures you are fully prepared to pass the assessment.
    • Providing support throughout the SMETA certification process carried out by an accredited certification body. In addition, it is advisable to plan annual or biannual SMETA audits.
  • SMETA Maintenance. This ensures that you remain fully prepared for certification at all times and maintain your reputation and credibility with clients. It includes the internal SMETA audit, performed by our consultants.

SMeta FAQs

What is SMETA?

It is an ethical trade and social responsibility audit that helps you understand labour standards, health and safety conditions, environmental performance, and ethical practices within your own operations or at a supplier’s site.

Moreover, the SMETA audit is designed to help protect workers from unsafe conditions, excessive working hours, discrimination, low wages, and forced labour.

SMETA is established by Sedex. Companies use SMETA 2-pillar and 4-pillar audits to analyse conditions, practices, workers, and risks at individual sites within their supply chains. The SMETA requirements are structured into the following pillars:

  • Labour Standards (2 pillars).
  • Health and Safety (2 pillars), aligned with the requirements of ISO 45001.
  • Environment (4 pillars), aligned with ISO 14001 and/or the EMAS Regulation.
  • Business Ethics (4 pillars), for example aligned with GRI reporting.

Furthermore, the findings from SMETA audits allow organisations to plan continuous improvement in the areas of Social Responsibility and ethical trade.

The SMETA platform methodology measures a site against the ETI Base Code, International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, and local law.

Finally, collaboration among the organisation’s stakeholders and having the required practices fully implemented is crucial in SMETA 7.0.

The benefits provided by a Sedex SMETA audit include:

  1. It enables a clear understanding of working conditions at a site.
  2. It provides a corrective action plan so that the supplier can resolve any issues.
  3. It offers various types of support to achieve social compliance.
  4. It is the most widely used ethical audit in the world.
  5. It allows organisations to assess and monitor supplier performance, as well as worker health and safety.
  6. A single audit can be shared with multiple buyers through the Sedex platform.

Although people commonly refer to a “SMETA certificate,” it is not actually a certification. SMETA is an on-site assessment methodology designed to promote visibility, continuous improvement, collaboration and the adoption of additional measures to strengthen responsible sourcing practices. It enables organisations to identify and resolve issues (non-conformities) in the workplace each year and, consequently, to make informed decisions about the sustainability of their supply chain and due-diligence activities.

A 2-Pillar SMETA audit covers the two mandatory pillars: Labour Standards and Health & Safety. These areas are required for any SMETA audit. It also includes additional elements such as Management Systems (including Land Rights), Human Rights, Responsible Recruitment Practices, Right to Work, Subcontracting and Homeworking, as well as a shortened environmental assessment.

For further clarity, consult the difference between SMETA 2-Pillar and SMETA 4-Pillar audits.

A 4-Pillar SMETA audit includes all the previously mentioned elements, plus the additional pillars of Environmental Management (extended assessment, which replaces the abbreviated review) and Business Ethics. These additional pillars may not be required by all Sedex members; therefore, it is essential that both worksites and auditors clearly understand when these extra modules are needed.

For more details, consult the difference between SMETA 2-Pillar and SMETA 4-Pillar audits.

SMETA is not an RSC audit, and therefore the result is a report that becomes publicly available on the SEDEX platform for your designated buyers.

It is advisable to keep the information updated annually, or as required by your buyer, to ensure continued transparency and alignment with responsible sourcing expectations.

With SMETA, we have achieved several success stories, such as Finca La Gramanosa (extra virgin olive oil mill), Girona Fruits (fruit storage and packaging center), Inleit Ingredients (dairy protein production), Lovenature Superfoods (wholesaler of organic ingredients), Sumarroca (winery), and Ken-Foods (dairy products).

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