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Demands to give up social auditing in global supply chains continue to emerge in different connections. Part of a political debate, they have not contained any realistic proposals about how to substitute these audits with other ways of gathering the information needed for improving conditions.

There have also been regular calls for opening up audit reports by making them public.

Publishing social audit results would give unions, labour advocacy organisations and others a better chance to intervene on behalf of workers when they see or feel that conditions need to be addressed.

To build up their involvement is a valid aspiration of these players and should not be brushed aside. A broad cooperation can indeed add to the impact of sustainability work where the key objectives are usually so widely shared.

More transparency could add to the relevance of social auditing as a tool that helps to protect human rights and ensure decent employment and working conditions. How to apply this so that the system continues to protect workers and others who provide confidential information to auditors is of key concern.

We can of course not forget that also the audited suppliers’ rights have to be protected, as have those of others involved. To make any changes in social auditing principles has to be approached with utmost care.

Moving from straight-forward ‘yes-or-no’ certification of labour conditions to a more nuanced and detailed audit reporting could well be one solution. Even more important is to link audit reporting directly to capacity building and remediation at supplier workplaces. After all, protecting human rights and securing decent labour conditions form the objective of all these activities.

Social Accountability International SAI has recently revised its SA8000 Social Standard and linked workplace certification directly to capacity building and remediation through its Social Fingerprint program. This is an excellent example of how creating direct and effective links between auditing, certification and remediation can be concretely and systematically approached.

There has also been much impatience among unions and others who say that they have failed to see even urgently needed changes to take place.

We have seen isolated failures of social auditing, but also some more systemic problems, sometimes unexpected until new kinds of situations have emerged. The auditing industry and the cooperating partners in the CSR community need to show that they are capable of handling these issues through more stringent rules and controls. In fact, much has been done, but not always well communicated to a broader public.

The 15 years or so of business driven and multi-stakeholder corporate social responsibility CSR activities have definitely brought improvements to supplier working conditions. Buying brands and retailers know that they must pay serious attention to the social aspects of their purchasing activities. This was not the case before Social Accountability International with its SA8000 Standard and others entered the scene.

The UN Guiding Principles would not have come about without the groundwork done also by the voluntary CSR schemes and initiatives. That Harvard Professor John Ruggie and his team were able to build a consensus around the responsibility of governments and business to protect human rights at work was a remarkable achievement. What was needed was that an important part of the business community already accepted their obligation and interest to approach their supply chains with due diligence.

CSR schemes and initiatives  are surely not the only forces behind these changes. Trade unions and labour advocacy organisations have done their part, as have many others. But changing business attitudes has been closely linked with the emergence of the CSR community, including social auditors.

The social auditing system itself has been far from flawless.

There will always be situations where social audits miss even significant problems or shortcomings at audited workplaces. There can be many reasons for this, one being that these audits cannot cover all factors that affect the work situation. Structural building safety, which in a tragic way proved to be a major and serious problem in the Bangladesh garment industry, is one of those where other approaches and tools were needed and also implemented.

Shortcomings and sometimes even unacceptable performances by individual auditors and companies can of course harm the whole industry. There could be unrealistic expectations towards social auditing, often related to new and unexpected situations. Audits cannot uncover all the deficiencies at a workplace, something which should be more effectively communicated.

It is always hard to find the correct balance between audit quality and costs, an issue which will surely never disappear. How can social auditors spend enough time both on audits and reporting and still keep the paying customers on board? Here, striving for the perfect can threaten the good, and compromising quality can undermine the reliability of the whole system.

There have been individual examples of poor or insufficient internal controls. While not common, they have caused both accreditation bodies and the auditing entities themselves to tighten up their rules. The auditing industry and the CSR community as a whole are well aware of the risks and have done much to control them.

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP auditing guidelines which auditing companies can benchmark against through an equivalence process are useful tools for improving social audit performance. They reflect a broad consensus between business and stakeholders about how the auditing system can be kept reliable.

In many parts of the world it will take very long before we see organised workers and their trade unions engage in social dialogue and collective agreement relationships with their employers, in an atmosphere or good faith and mutual respect.

Auditing remains an important part of efforts to secure human rights at work and  improve labour conditions in global supply chains. How could brands and retailers, their suppliers, and concerned stakeholders get the information that they need for remediation and capacity building if this tool did not exist?

Instead of saying no to social audits we should continue to develop and improve these activities.

Workers, trade unions, community organisations and others need to be more involved in monitoring conditions. Buying brands and retailers need to be an active part of this work and cannot outsource their due diligence obligations to others.

Most importantly, the audits have to be effectively and properly linked to and followed up by remediation and corrective action where a need for this has been identified.