Responsible sourcing
What certified means.
A certificate says an auditor checked something, against a standard, within a scope, on a date. Buyers read it as a general statement of quality. Almost every disappointment in this area comes from that gap.
The four questions.
Ask these of any certificate before it changes your decision.
- Against what standard
- A named standard with a version, rather than a house scheme or a word. If nobody can name it, it is a logo.
- What scope
- Which sites, which products, which processes. A certificate covering one line does not cover the factory, and this is the most common misreading.
- Issued by whom
- A certification body accredited to issue against that standard. Verify with the issuer rather than by looking at the document.
- Valid when
- Certificates expire, get suspended and get withdrawn. Check the date and check the register on every shipment rather than filing the first one.
What a certificate does not tell you.
What happened after the audit. An audit is a day, and production is every other day.
Whether your specific order was made inside the scope. A certified factory can subcontract, and the certificate does not follow the work.
Whether the product is good. Most schemes certify systems and practices rather than outcomes.
Whether the document is genuine. Forgeries exist, they look correct, and the only reliable check is with the issuing body.
The three kinds you will meet.
Legal requirements: a certificate a market demands, such as a health certificate or a legality document. Absence stops the goods.
Buyer requirements: private schemes your customers ask for. Absence stops the sale rather than the shipment.
Marketing: schemes with no external accreditation that exist to be printed. Some are harmless and none of them substitute for the first two.
The trouble starts when a supplier presents the third kind in answer to a question about the first.
How to use them properly.
Ask for the certificate number and verify it with the body that issued it. This takes minutes and it is the single highest-value check in sourcing.
Read the scope annexe rather than the front page, because the front page is designed to be reassuring.
Re-check on a schedule rather than once, because suspension is exactly the situation you need to know about.
Treat certification as one input to your own verification rather than as a replacement for it.
Questions buyers ask.
Can I trust a certificate a supplier emails me?
Trust the number and verify it with the issuing body. The document itself is easy to alter and the register is not, so the check is on the register rather than on the file.
Does a certified factory mean certified goods?
Only if your product and your process are inside the scope. Read the scope annexe, because a certificate covering one product line is routinely presented as covering the site.
Which certifications actually matter?
The ones your market legally requires and the ones your customers demand. Everything else is optional, and a supplier without an optional scheme can be entirely legitimate.
Read next.
How to verify an Indonesian supplier
Two public government registries, the cross-check between them that catches most problems before a deposit moves, and the part only a visit can answer.
What a factory audit can and cannot tell you
An audit is a snapshot of a place on a day. What that establishes, what it cannot reach, and how buyers over-read it.
Which sustainability claims you can defend
Regulators now test environmental claims. What each common one needs behind it, and which to avoid entirely.
Buying certified organic
An organic certificate only helps if your market recognises the certifier. Who needs to hold what.
Choosing a laboratory
Accreditation, scope, location and turnaround. Which decide whether a result is usable.
Sourcing from Indonesia?
Tell us the product, the quantity and the destination. We come back with what it involves before anyone talks about money.