Critical path

The verification system is built on five major steps called the critical path.

Step I

In a first step, an organisation will normally conduct an auto-evaluation to assess if it meets the Union’s minimal requirements and, where necessary, make adjustments to comply with them. At this stage organisations also submit their membership application in which they are asked to formally commit to the conditions of the Union, including the process leading to Ethical BioTrade verification. The membership committee shall then review the application. If this evaluation is positive, then the organisation will be granted the status of approved candidate.

Step II

The applicant will hire an independent verification body qualified by the Union to verify the fulfilment of the minimal requirements, and analyse the gaps between a members’ operations and the Union’s Verification Framework.

Step III

The member will develop its own work plan describing the sequence of measures and the timeframe by which it will fill the identified gaps. This work plan will then be sent to the Union for evaluation and, if accepted, the provisional member status will be upgraded to membership.

Step IV

The fourth step is the implementation of the work plan. The maximum timeframe given for implementation is five years, although members are encouraged to move ahead faster. Once a year, the member will evaluate and report its progress to ensure it is in line with the previously defined work plan. The results of these audits will need to be reported to the Union. Major non-compliance with the work plan will normally disqualify the organisation from membership.

One year before the final audit is carried out, a qualified verification body will assess progress and verify that previous reports were accurate. This allows forfine tuning the work plan and minimising the risk of final non-compliance. In case this audit identifies voluntarily misleading self-reports, the member will be expelled from the Union.

Step V

The final verification will be conducted by an independent verification body by the Union. The member should be in compliance with the Ethical BioTrade Verification Framework.

Once in compliance, continuous membership of the Union will be conditional upon continuous compliance with the Verification Framework. A third party audit should verify this every 3 years, while the organisation will self-report annually in the intervening years.

Members will also be expected to show continuous improvement, which they will be able to measure using a set of impact indicators.