Amherst, MA - Verite and CREA are facilitating a project, with the support of the US Department of State's Office of International Labor Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility, to build consensus around a universal set of standards for the skills, knowledge, and competence of social auditors. We have developed a survey to facilitate dialogue and consensus-building on standards for the skills and knowledge of social auditors. The survey is the first step towards developing a universal set of social auditor standards and ensuring social auditor certification courses use common standards for their curricula.

CREA and Verite seek input from stakeholders worldwide that have a direct interest in social auditing, including companies, NGOs, social auditor groups, consulting firms, code organizations, multi-stakeholder initiatives, investors, associations, and others. The survey will be open for input throughout October 2008, when the results will be posted on the website www.socialauditor.org and a wiki will open to encourage further dialogue.

The survey includes sections on social auditor knowledge standards, skills and competencies, ethics, post-audit issues, structural considerations, previous experience, and credentials. The survey is available in English, Spanish, French, and Mandarin Chinese.

To request the survey in English, go to surveyparticipation@verite.org
For the Spanish version, go to spanishsurvey@verite.org
For French, use frenchsurvey@verite.org
For Chinese, use chinesesurvey@verite.org

We welcome your participation and encourage you to post this announcement on your own site so that our findings can reflect stakeholders' opinions more accurately. Wide distribution will benefit everyone.

About the Social Monitoring Standards Project

In 2008, Verite and CREA created a project with the support of the US Department of State's Office of International Labor Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility to facilitate the development of standards for the knowledge, skills, and competencies of social auditors. In 2008, the Project will focus on facilitating input and building consensus around draft standards through dialogue with interested brands, retailers, social monitoring groups, multi stakeholder initiatives, non-governmental organizations, labor groups, investors, and other relevant organizations. Next, Verite and CREA will convene an independent experts' committee to develop recommended standards based on input received and work with interested training institutions to pilot sample training applications of the proposed standards. A final step of the project is to facilitate a process by which stakeholders can recommend approaches for institutionalizing and promoting a standards-based social auditor training credential system.

About CREA and VERITE

CREA

The Center for Reflection, Education and Action, Inc. (CREA) is a social economic research and education not-for-profit institution with over a decade of CSR experience in monitoring and education. CREA has been involved in social compliance monitoring including the development of codes, compliance systems and trainings. For more information, go to www.crea-inc.org.

Verite

Verite's mission is to ensure that people worldwide work under safe, fair and legal conditions. Founded in 1995, Verité is a pioneer in monitoring, researching and improving labor and environmental practices in workplaces around the world. Verite is a winner of the 2007 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. For more information on Verite, go to www.verite.org.

For more information on the survey, contact standardsmoderator@verite.org

Verite

Verite

At Verité©, we are committed to ensuring that people worldwide work under safe, fair and legal conditions. In over 60 countries around the world we provide governments, corporations, investors, factories, NGOs and workers with information on global working conditions and innovative programs to improve them

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