Human Rights Outlook Report 2017
Verisk Maplecroft
Verisk Maplecroft is an internationally recognized source of human rights data, research and consultancy services who have been working in the field for 10+ years.  Recently they published a Human Rights Outlook Report for 2017.  Following is the link to that report

Verisk Maplecroft Human Rights Outlook Report for 2017
Earlier this year they requested an interview from APSCA to understand what we believed to be wrong with social audits, what we were trying to do as an organization and how our auditor certification program will work.  Please see the results of that interview in Section 1 of the report.
APSCA aims to certify the first round of auditors in January 2018, beginning with three to five major countries.  Our Working and Consultation Groups have been making great progress in defining the prerequisites, skills and competencies that a social auditor should hold and the relevant auditor level to which they will be accredited. 

Working Groups’ Update
The three working groups have made great progress since work began last year.   The published project plans had us going to Public Comment for the various working groups independently (with Working Group 1 due to go to Public Comment this month), but as we were nearing the completion of this work and obtaining feedback, it was determined it would be more effective if we held back and went to Public Comment with a complete package.
 APSCA are now moving to engage experts in the human resources field to take the information completed thus far by the working groups and to consolidate.  Then we will start the process of socialising this work and calling on the Working / Consultation Groups for feedback.   This will then be shared with the Executive Board in early May.
 We are currently working on our modified High Level Milestones for each of the working groups and this will be uploaded to our website shortly.  APSCA is still moving ahead at a great pace to meet our longer term desired outcome to formalise the accreditation process for APSCA registered auditors and ensuring we develop a framework to professionalise the social compliance auditing industry.

​Social & Labor Convergence Team Meeting
In February, Avedis Seferian (APSCA Chair) and Rona Starr (APSCA Executive Director) had the opportunity to meet and spend a few hours working with the Social and Labor (S&L) Convergence Project Team in Amsterdam.  The focus of this meeting was to continue the conversation about how APSCA and S&L can work closely and to begin developing a framework to articulate the expectation of our business relationship.  While the two initiatives are quite distinct in their core missions, the discussion explored areas of common interest and intersection, with avenues of partnering for mutual benefit emerging. More to come on this front in the coming months.

From Left to Right:  Avedis Seferian (APSCA Chair), Baptise Carriere-Pradal (VP-EU, SAC), Rona Starr (APSCA Executive Director), Janet Mensink (S&L Convergence Project Director), Christian Smith (S&L Convergence Project Manager).

Working Groups’ (WG) UpdateThe three working groups continue to make progress and are committed to their project plans.  As we stay focused on our overall desired outcome of “creating a license to operate” for social compliance auditors, similar to CPA for Accounting or the BAR for legal, our working groups are hard at work.
 
WG1 (Identify Categories) – Presented a framework document to both the Consultation Group as well as WG2.  Once finalized, WG2 will define auditor competencies required to identify / verify during a social audit.  The framework document contains a list of categories which occur in social audits.  Feedback has been received from the Consultation Group, WG2, the Executive & Stakeholder Boards.  All feedback is being incorporated into the next draft which will be shared for public comment in March 2017.

WG2 (Identify Auditor Levels Auditor Competencies) – Presented preliminary Auditor Levels with definitions to the Consultation Group as well as the Executive & Stakeholder Boards.  All feedback is being incorporated and the pre-requisites to obtain each level are being defined.

WG3 (Develop a Professional Code of Conduct) – After much benchmarking, WG3 have developed and presented the preliminary Code of Professional Conduct to the Consultation Group and are in the process of incorporating the feedback. 
To receive up-to-date information regarding APSCA and our work in progress visit our website www.theapsca.org. Ensure you sign-up to receive our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn if you haven’t already! ​

Celebrating Our First 100 Days It has been 100 days since APSCA kicked off full time…. and as the saying goes….. success or failure is made in the first 100 days.  

In the spirit of Christmas, we would like to take a moment and thank you for being part of APSCA and ask you to join us in celebrating our success.  Below are 6 of our 2016 achievements and our top 3, 2017 goals.

2016 Achievements:

• Implementation of objective Membership Process
• Increased membership from 9 to 17 firms
• Working Groups well established 
  • Roadmap/ Projects Plans complete for working groups 1 and 3 (working group 2 not far behind)
• General Meeting with the following achievements held 1-3 November:
  • Election of the Executive Board, including Chair
  • APSCA Charter and 2017 Budget approved by Members
  • 15 separate meetings with over 100 people participating 
• Development of foundational and process documents including document control policy
• Over 200 calls/ meetings

Top 3 Goals for 2017:

• Working Groups deliver against project plans (updates will be posted on website commencing January 2017)
• Auditor registration portal launched
• Disciplinary committee established

​From all of us at APSCA, thanks for your ongoing support.  We wish you and your families the best for the holiday season! .

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

Rona Starr & Julie Shaw

To receive up-to-date information regarding APSCA and our work in progress visit our website www.theapsca.org. Ensure you sign-up to receive our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn if you haven’t already!