Unification of Certifications - Need of the Hour

Few days back, I attended a stakeholder consultation meeting and seminar on “FSC Certification in India”. The entire FSC board was in New Delhi for the meeting and it provided a great opportunity to learn about FSC and what it stands for. One of the delegates from Germany showed me train ticket of Deutsche Bahn AG. I was zapped to see FSC certification logo printed on it! He went on to explain the concept behind FSC Chain of Custody. It shows that raw material for manufacturer of particular product (in this case paper) has been sourced from responsibly managed forest. That is great for the cause of sustainability. Hey, but wait a minute! Does FSC speak about – water consumption, energy consumption, GHG emission, waste generation etc.? The answer is no. Well, I am not here to criticize FSC certification per se, but my intent is to bring out concerns of purchase professionals and vendors swamped in maze of certifications.

FSC is one of the most reputed and pervasive third party certification. There is no denying the fact that if we want wood based product; it is better to have them sourced from responsibly managed products.  But the question is – is it good enough? For example, take the case of paper. I think there are lots of environmental concerns with paper ranging from sourcing of pulp to bleaching of pulp to disposal of paper. So as an organization, I would like to buy paper which scores not only on base materials of pulp but on entire gamut of paper manufacturing, use and its disposal which gets captured by life cycle assessment (LCA) of paper. For a purchaser, it would really help if a certification addresses environmental concerns during entire life cycle of a product. But, how do we take care of social issue? Moving further, should not a certification address worker’s health and safety at work places? Do we have a certification that addresses both environmental and social concerns while buying a product?

For vendors also, there is problem of array of certifications on their platter but hardly any choice to choose from. There are plethora of certifications viz. ISO 9001, ISO14001, ROHS, FAIRTRADE, IOAS, OSACH, SA 8000 etc. besides Code of Conducts of various MNCs. They want to remain in business but are fed up, as they have to manage and comply with so many certifications to secure their long-term business growth. They are willing to comply with certification requirement but each certification has different documentation requirements.  Remember, everything has a cost! One vendor talking in confidentiality shared with me that one Code of Conduct audit costs about $1000. Of course, vendors would not pay from their pocket but it all adds up to cost to the end consumers. Is not this additional cost of green/sustainable products and services hampering adoption of these products and services by consumers? What about having a single certification, based on multiple criteria, that addresses both environmental and social concerns? Would not it make life easier for both purchaser and vendors?

I don’t think it is impossible, but it is definitely a huge task. But the problem is how these certification agencies are going to reconcile their processes in the interest of purchaser and vendors without compromising their own core competitiveness. The fact that all these certifications are voluntary in nature, makes this process further tiring.  Each certification body has its own set of accreditation process and auditors with focus on particular sectors. For example, FSC is relevant to forest wood and wood based products; SA 8000 is focused on worker’s rights and their health and safety concerns etc. How are they going to merge this and come up with a new set of process, which satisfy all accreditation bodies? Another problem would be reconciling what do you certify – a process or a product? Are industry bodies, government and certification agencies willing to take up this challenge and make certification simpler?

One may question role of government in this space, as these certifications are voluntary in nature.  But government does have a stake here because export from SME sector is very much, may I say, certification driven now. Governments in developing nations need to take up this issue with certification agencies, as that would facilitate growth of SMEs leading to higher exports and export revenue.  The governments can at least facilitate the process and bring SMEs bodies and certification agencies on table for discussion and reconciliation. 

Are consumers loosing out anything in the process?  The whole certification concepts is based on consumer’s demand for environmentally and socially sound products and services. If consumers are likely to benefits in terms of reduction in cost of products and services, vendors are likely to benefits in terms of reduction in transaction costs for multiple certifications and buyers are likely to benefit from simplification of certification, who else should have any complaints about unification of certifications?