[europe]
The Italian Job
Leading Italian assurance provider Certificazioni Torinesi S.R.L. (“CerTo”) has joined SAI’s global family. The acquisition of CerTo delivers on SAI’s strategic intent to build a leading global scale business in the international assurance market, extending its influence in continental Europe. CerTo dominates Italy’s automotive certification industry and its services align with SAI’s existing management systems and product certification offering.
The acquisition also adds blue-chip clients to SAI’s assurance business including Ferrari, Maserati and Bosch. “CerTo is proud to become part of the SAI Global family” says Domenico Gai, CEO of CerTo: “It’s a great opportunity to improve our leadership, to develop new competencies and to strengthen and extend our image and presence worldwide.”
Headquartered in Turin, CERTO was founded in 1993 as a landmark organization for Italian Automotive Industries. The company’s core products include ISO9001, ISO14001, UNI9100, TS16949, Environment Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), Emission Trading Scheme, OHSAS18001 and SA8000. CerTo also conducts in-house training and performs asset management audits for large organizations.
[europe]
UK Accreditation
The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) has endorsed SAI Global to provide accredited certificates to its assurance clients in Britain. The accreditation comes following its recent acquisition of Central Certification Services. Accreditation through the United Kingdom assurance regulator follows an extensive assessment of SAI Global’s operations, demonstrating the competence, impartiality and performance capability of SAI’s auditors. SAI Global continues to broaden its acquired assurance businesses around the world and UKAS accreditation is recognition of the ongoing success of this process.
The accreditation certifies that the personnel, systems, procedures and records viewed at SAI’s UK office are in compliance with UKAS standards. SAI Global systems and procedures implemented following the acquisition of CCS were found to be robust and thorough. The systems and processes were detailed in a controlled implementation plan covering areas such as office set-up, personnel training and finances.
The UKAS accreditation applies to all of SAI’s quality and environmental management clients based in the United Kingdom. Consequently, clients will now be able to display their UKAS accreditation alongside the prestigious “five-ticks” StandardsMark™.
[asia]
Tackling food safety in India
The Protein Foods & Nutrition Development Association of India (PFNDAI) and SAI Global recently hosted a high profile seminar for the Indian Food Industry.
The two-day seminar, presented by British Retail Consortium (BRC) Head of Technical Services, Kevin Swoffer, comes on the back of the publication of the Food Safety and Standards Bill by the Indian government. The seminar conveyed vital information for potential suppliers to the British food industry and food safety practitioners interested in best practice. It presented detailed knowledge on BRC food and packaging standards, European legislation and requirements for trade in the UK, tailored to the Indian Food Industry.
The BRC Food Technical Standard is regarded as the benchmark for best practice in the food industry and has evolved into a global standard used to assess retailer suppliers and a framework for food industry processes. Knowledge of the BRC Food Technical Standard and the European legislation and requirements will equip businesses in the Indian food industry with the skills to compete with industry leaders on an international scale.
[global]
World Standards Day
World Standards Day is celebrated annually on 14 October in tribute to the thousands of experts worldwide who develop voluntary international standards that facilitate trade, spread knowledge and share technological advances.
The theme for this year’s World Standards Day is “standards: big benefits for small business”. This recognizes the relevance of standards as a significant force in world commerce to small and medium sized organisations, which constitute a significant share of the world’s businesses.
The leaders of the world’s principal standards developing bodies, ITU (International Telecommunications Union), IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) and ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation), emphasise
that small business owners not only provide the nuts and bolts of the world’s economy, but also stand to benefit substantially from international standards. “Small business owners and managers are hard-working people, sharply focused on the survival of their enterprises, and international standardization might seem far removed from their practical concerns. However the fact is that international standards developed by ISO, IEC and ITU have facilitated economic developments and the dissemination of technologies that empower small business...” announces the joint World Standards Day message. World Standards Day began as a celebration of the birth of the ISO, which held its first meeting in London on October 14, 1946. The goal of World Standards Day is to raise awareness of the importance of global standardization to the world economy and to promote its role in helping meet the needs of business, industry, government and consumers worldwide.
[pacific]
Ethical Investment Forum
One of the world’s first online ethical investment training courses was launched at a recent, exclusive forum hosted by SAI Global.
The event was hosted by eminent Australian financial commentator Paul Clitheroe, who said, “Ethics are an important issue for the investment industry. The rising consumer demand for ethical alternatives when investing is something that needs to be addressed.”
The forum met to discuss the future of an area in the financial industry that is growing at an incredible rate. The debate focused on demand for ethical investment, the problems in keeping pace with such a thriving trade, and the need for training and regulation in this area.
Tom Meagher, Vice President of Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management spoke compellingly of the market pressure for ethical investment, “Demand is strong from individual investors and particularly from not-for-profit, charitable and religious organisations. Investors are increasingly seeking to align their beliefs and values with their investments.”
The ethical investment training course, which helps financial planners meet this demand, was developed by the industry peak professional body the Ethical Investment Association (EIA) and SAI Global. A “who’s who” of the Australian investment community attended the launch forum, including representatives from Commonwealth Bank, AMP, Colonial First State and Macquarie Bank.
The course covers areas such as terminology, an explanation of ethical issues and how they relate to investments, how to develop an investment profile that matches a client’s values, product familiarization, portfolio construction, direct share advice, access to global research and interactive case studies.
[north america]
Pollution prevention pioneer
Robert Pojasek, Principal Consultant of SAI Global’s North American Professional Services division, has been awarded a national recognition for his contributions to the field of “pollution prevention.”
As well as his work for SAI, Pojasek lectures on Environmental Science at the Harvard School of Public Health. He has been active in the field of pollution prevention for 25 years. In 1987, he explains, “I introduced quality management tools and process improvement that helped industries change their practices and lower their impact on the environment. My
effort culminated in the publication of a document for the Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 entitled An Organizational Guide for Pollution Prevention. Now his work is to be acknowledged with the awarding of a P2 Champion Award from the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR).
The Roundtable, the largest membership organization in the US devoted solely to pollution prevention, provides a national forum for promoting measures to avoid, eliminate or reduce pollution at the source. Robert’s achievement was honoured at a ceremony in Washington DC, attended by figures of note amongst those dedicated to pollution prevention.
[mission sustainable]
Where to begin?
By Robert Pojasek
In the 1980’s, sustainable development and environmental management were considered synonymous. Sustainable development was interpreted as the need to improve environmental performance and reduce material use and waste and to generally improve the “eco-efficiency” of the operation. Thinking progressed through the next decade. It was felt that addressing environmental and natural resource issues is necessary, but not sufficient to assure a sustainable future.
Economic and social imbalances must also be overcome if sustainability is to be achieved. During this period of time, we have witnessed the development of the field of Corporate social responsibility (CSR) to specifically deal with a business role in addressing these issues while not diminishing its focus on the environment. It is much more difficult to put in place a program that addresses the environment, social and economic responsibilities in a fully integrated manner.
Many sustainable development programs start by looking at the aspects and risks (e.g., environment, social and economic) of the organization. This examination can make a number of invalid assumptions about the individual processes operating as a system in the organization. By focusing on the impacts, an organization may be precluding the opportunity to change its individual processes to completely avoid some of these impacts.
This element of prevention at the source is at the crux of how to achieve sustainable development. Simply reacting to impacts or controlling the processes to ameliorate the impacts will never deliver the same value to the organization – a key component of any sustainable development program.
Using a process focus, the organization can engage its stakeholders to determine their interests regarding the processes and operations controlled by the organization. Stakeholder engagement and the balancing of the three responsibilities (environment, social and economic) can be readily integrated into a business management system.
Having a single focus for the management systems, the business excellence system and the process improvement programs to drive continual improvement will improve an organization’s ability to move down the path to sustainable development. Over future columns, Thinking Business will look at how different organizations are taking a holistic approach to sustainable development.
ENDS