Responsible Business Alliance – VAP

What is a Responsible Business Alliance – VAP audit?

The Validated Assessment Program (VAP) was created by the Responsible Business Alliance and is a leading standard for onsite social compliance verifications and shareable audits. A VAP audit provides a unique combination of depth and quality assurance in an independent, sharable qualified third-party end-to-end audit service focused on improving business practices.

ELEVATE is approved by the RBA to conduct audits utilizing the VAP protocols: Validated Assessment Program (VAP), customer-managed audits (CMAs) and auditee-managed audits (AMAs). RBA audits performed by ELEVATE are accepted by RBA members and can be shared via the RBA-ON system.

The Validated Audit Protocol (VAP) Methodology

The Validated Audit Program protocol is based on the RBA Code of Conduct, a set of social, environmental and ethical industry standards. The standards set out in the Code of Conduct reference international norms and standards including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ILO International Labor Standards, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, ISO and SA standards, and many more. While the Code of Conduct originated with the electronics industry in mind, it is applicable to and used by many industries beyond electronics.

A typical VAP onsite audit at a single manufacturing facility may last 2-5 days and includes a thorough document review, interviews with management and employees and a visual site survey.

ELEVATE executes RBA audits according to the 6.1.0 VAP operations manual (effective Jan 1, 2020). RBA Validated Assessment Process Criteria includes:

• RBA Code of Conduct
• Local requirements
• Labor
• Health and safety
• Environment
• Ethics
• Management systems for labor, health & safety, environment and ethics

CMA and AMAs:

Members that choose not to use the Validated Audit Program can complete approved Customer-Managed Audits (CMAs) or Auditee-Managed Audits (AMAs). ELEVATE is an approved third-party firm for these audits. We have approved auditors by the RBA Audit Program Manager. CMAs and AMAs are executed to the RBA VAP protocol in its entirety. If an RBA member prefers to choose ELEVATE as its VAP audit firm, the member can request a CMA or AMA audit with ELEVATE.

In countries at high-risk of having forced labor conditions in supply chains, ELEVATE can execute the Supplemental Validated Audit Process (SVAP) for Forced Labor. The SVAP for Forced labor is an audit program based exclusively on identifying the risk of forced labor at an employment site (factory or labor provider).

ELEVATE RBA Expertise

• We conduct approximately 18,000 social and environmental audits per year in over 100 countries.
• ELEVATE auditors are RBA approved.
• ELEVATE experts support the Corrective Action Plan Report (CAP) process.
• ELEVATE conducts Validated Closure Audits.
• RBA eLearning Academy is powered by ELEVATE.
• Our Performance Benchmark Report – benchmarking factory performance against peers and country data powered by ELEVATE EiQ analytics.
• Auditors are local, bilingual and have a clear understanding of region-specific trends and challenges.
• APSCA certification is a minimum requirement at ELEVATE – we go above and beyond. Our ELEVATE Assessment Manual, our focus on transparency and additional ELEVATE Academy training make ELEVATE auditors the most trusted in the profession.
• We were the co-Winner with RBA at the Sedex Awards 2017 for the Most Innovative New Programme – EICC Workplace of Choice.
• We are subject matter experts in risks specific to migrant workers, including ethical recruitment and work with companies to create on-the-ground change; we are the program implementor to the Responsible Labor Initiative’s Responsible Workplace Program, Malaysia and consultant to the Responsible Recruitment Program.
• ELEVATE built and manages the worker grievance mechanism in Malaysia, Suara Kami, designed to protect the human rights of vulnerable workers.
• ELEVATE led the IDH Electronics Industry Worker-Management Dialogue Program in China for 50 factories that reached over 200,000 workers.