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Exploring Supplier Sustainability Audit Standards: Potential for and Barriers to Standardization

Sustainability (Basel, Switzerland), 2020-10, Vol.12 (19), p.8223 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License. ;ISSN: 2071-1050 ;EISSN: 2071-1050 ;DOI: 10.3390/su12198223

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  • Title:
    Exploring Supplier Sustainability Audit Standards: Potential for and Barriers to Standardization
  • Author: Fraser, Iain J. ; Schwarzkopf, Julia ; Müller, Martin
  • Subjects: Audits ; Codes ; Compliance ; Empirical analysis ; Initiatives ; Questions ; Recognition ; Self evaluation ; Standardization ; Suppliers ; Supply chain management ; Supply chains ; Sustainability
  • Is Part Of: Sustainability (Basel, Switzerland), 2020-10, Vol.12 (19), p.8223
  • Description: Global focal companies are increasingly required and expected to monitor the sustainability risks and activities in their supply chains, which has resulted in increasing supplier sustainability audit activity and growth in the number of sustainability initiatives/associations. While common, shared audit standards were originally conceived to reduce audit fatigue; with overlapping and converging supply chains there could be a need for cross-recognition or standardisation of supplier audit standards. This research aims to provide empirically grounded insight into sustainability audit activity, audit processes and standards for suppliers and the extent to which they overlap. Audit standards employed by eight multi-brand, voluntary sustainability initiatives/associations, focusing on supply chain sustainability (SMETA, PSCI, ICTI, FWF, ASI, JAC, amforiBSCI and RBA) were inductively analysed. This research compares the audit processes and standards, detecting common audit categories, analysing points of overlap and difference. We find empirical evidence of significant growth in supplier sustainability audit activity. We also find overlap among the standards in terms of audit process and steps, as well as at the level of audit focus categories. Deeper analysis reveals large differences at the granular level in terms of questions asked to assess specific topics. We conclude that there is potential for standardisation and cross-recognition but that significant barriers to agreement at the level of audit questions and how topics are evaluated remain. This research provides a first empirical overview of this important tool and its application in various industries for sustainable supply chain management.
  • Publisher: Basel: MDPI AG
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 2071-1050
    EISSN: 2071-1050
    DOI: 10.3390/su12198223
  • Source: GFMER Free Medical Journals
    ROAD: Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources
    ProQuest Central
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