WIETA News
Newly accredited sites
Congratulations to VILLIERA, FAIRVIEW & THE
BADSBERG CELLAR who were successful in achieving WIETA accreditation
towards the end of 2006!
Picture courtesy of Villiera
WIETA
changes its name and broadens its scope
Members voted in favour of WIETA broadening its scope to encompass
all sectors of agriculture at the AGM last year. We are now called
the WINE AND AGRICULTURAL ETHICAL TRADE ASSOCIATION trading as “WIETA”.
Since the AGM, a number of fruit producers and two large exporting
businesses (Fruitways and Capespan) have joined the organisation.
WIETA, in partnership with Fruitways, piloted its auditing processes
on 3 fruit farms at the beginning of this month.
Tesco outlines ethical sourcing programme to wieta members
Tesco met with members of WIETA this month
to provide information on SEDEX, a web based data storage system,
which allows companies to maintain data on labour standards at
production sites, and to make it available to companies with which
they are in a trading relationship.
Tesco, Marks and Spencer, Sainsburys and Waitrose (amongst others)
are members of SEDEX.
The data base holds the following site specific records:
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Site profile information |
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Standard self assessment questionnaire |
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Space to upload audit reports |
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Summary of audit non compliances |
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Standard form to record actions and progress |
All of Tesco’s primary suppliers are required to register with Sedex.
Tesco will assess the risk profile of each of its suppliers based on
the site profile information and self assessment questionnaire. The
risk profile of the supplier will determine whether Tesco will
require it to undergo a social audit. Tesco have recognised WIETA as
a “trade scheme” to conduct social audits at their supplier sites.
We will do what we can from our side to compare and merge the SEDEX
and WIETA forms, so that there is no unnecessary duplication of
reporting.
WIETA accepted as a member of the SEDEX (Suppliers Ethical Data
Exchange) global auditing agency group (AAG)
Companies need to communicate their progress
on social compliance and development to global markets. We provide a
service to members and retailers who are interested in tracking
their suppliers’ progress in meeting the requirements of the code by
publishing our members’ progress in the accreditation process on
this website (see membership). In addition, once the
WIETA audit report has been completed, WIETA is able to load this,
and verification of your action plans, onto the SEDEX website, at
the request of the member concerned. There is no additional charge
to producers and growers for this WIETA service. If your company is
registered with SEDEX, you can authorise WIETA in the pre-audit
stage to place your SEDEX self-evaluation and information
questionnaire in our files, so as to cut the information you have to
provide for WIETA to a minimum.
SEDEX is a not-for- profit company based in
the UK, with partial stakeholder governance. It is supported by a
number of UK retailers (including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose),
and enables these and other players to view their suppliers’
progress in addressing non compliances. The grower or producer is
able to determine, via a private code, who can see this information
on the world wide web. WIETA is recognised by SEDEX as a
multi-stakeholder 3rd party auditing agency, and has recently been
assessed by SEDEX and welcomed as a member of the SEDEX Auditing
Agency Group. This global subcommittee of for-profit and
not-for-profit 3rd party auditing agencies develops standard SEDEX
auditing techniques and shares information on auditing protocols,
practices, philosophies, standards and best practices. By
participating In this forum, we believe WIETA stakeholders will be
able to influence social audit design in the direction of
cost-effective participatory methods, and learn from social auditing
experiences globally and feed these back to the South African
stakeholders.
WIETA Training & Materials Development Programme
WIETA received the SAWIT funding for a
training and materials development programme in January 2006. We
have short listed the candidates for the post, and interviews will
take place on the 14 February. We hope to have the successful
applicant on board in March, and look forward to offering training
for both management and worker representatives on the code and WIETA
auditing process.
Raasblaarstories : Order
Form
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We are able to supply each member with up to 20 free copies
of Raasblaarstories / Amabali ase Raasblaar – our photocomic
story for workers which explains WIETA auditing and the
Code. Should you want more copies, you are welcome to
purchase these from us, at R10 per copy. Please try to
ensure that a few copies of the photostory are kept at the
worksite, so that they are accessible to new workers and
temporary employees as well. Please complete and return the order form via fax number to (021)
447-5662 or e-mail to
anthea@wieta.org.za
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Download the Raasblaarstories order form
HERE.
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Read archived news items
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