It is an audit that helps you understand labour, health and safety standards, environmental performance and ethics within your own operations or at a supplier's site.

The SMETA audit is designed to help protect workers from unsafe conditions, overwork, discrimination, low wages and forced labor.

Enter the SEDEX website and in the part where it says “Become a member” choose “Supplier Membership” from the drop-down list, complete the information they request about your operation, you will create a unique password and they will indicate the steps to follow.

The cost you must pay to become a member is decided by SEDEX according to the size of your operation. You can find the current rates on the same SEDEX page https://www.sedex.com/es/entregando-mas-valor-para-nuestros-miembros-precios-actualizacion/

The Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex) is a non-profit membership organization that leads work with buyers and suppliers to deliver improvements in corporate responsibility and ethics practices in Supply Chain

global. SEDEX was founded in 2001 by a group of merchants, in order to achieve convergence in social audit standards and monitoring practices. SEDEX aims to ease the audit burden for suppliers through the sharing of audit reports while driving improvements in supply chain standards.

A SMETA 2-Pillar audit comprises the 2 Pillars of Labor Standards and Health and Safety. These are mandatory areas for any SMETA audit. It also contains the additional elements of Management Systems (including Land Rights), Human Rights, Responsible Recruitment Practices, Right to Work, Subcontracting and Working from Home, an abbreviated Environmental Assessment.

A SMETA 4-Pillar audit includes all of the aforementioned elements, plus the additional pillars of Environment (extended assessment, which replaces the abbreviated assessment) and Business Ethics. These additional pillars may not be required by all Sedex members and it is important that worksites and auditors are clear about when these additional modules are required.

Taking into consideration the number of workers (excluding administration) based on what is indicated in the table of days per auditor and sample size for complete, initial, periodic and complete follow-up audits.

Set of questions with information on the personnel profile and the management systems in force. It is an opportunity for sites to conduct a gap analysis and make improvements. Help sites prepare for an ethics audit, such as SMETA.

This document must be completed online, before the planned audit date and each time there is a change in your operation.

In your SEDEX profile:

Go to Company > my company and scroll to the bottom

that page to get a list of your sites.

Click the “Start an Audit” button to submit an audit request that will be charged to your audit company account

Select who will perform the audit, enter the name of the audit company and complete the additional information

Click “Send” to send the request to the Sedex account audit company.

SMETA is not a certification so the result of its audit is a report that is public on the SEDEX platform for its designated buyers.

It is advisable to keep the information updated annually or as determined by your buyer.

After 10 business days, Control Union uploads the results of its audit to SEDEX and will also send you a communication through your company's contact email. After this, the authorized contact at SEDEX must review and then mark PUBLISH so that their designated buyers can see the result of their audit.