Are you ResponsibleSteel™ ready?
ResponsibleSteel is due to be certifiable by the end of 2019. Major automotive and transport companies are increasingly specifying rigorous sustainability requirements for suppliers in their supply chains.
So how can you ensure that your operations and supply chain are ready?
DNV GL has conducted around 18 ResponsibleSteel readiness assessments to enable sites to navigate the 300+ requirements of the Standard, and help them gather the relevant information required to achieve certification. Unlike an ISO certification, which focuses on just one domain, i.e. either environment or Health and Safety or quality, ResponsibleSteel touches upon various aspects of sustainability, including Human Rights, Governance, Human Resources, and Community and Stakeholder relations, in addition to Environment and Health and Safety.
While sites have been undergoing Environment and Health and Safety audits over many years, few speak the broader language of sustainability, that the Standard uses in great detail. Few sites have undergone a social audit, for example, which limits their ability to understand the Standard at first glance. Sites typically struggle with understanding issues such as human rights in a site-specific context, rather than from a corporate perspective. Understanding the detailed requirements around stakeholder engagement and grievance mechanisms, particularly those related to suppliers and employment agencies, can be challenging.
Identifying the right people to respond to the Standard requirements, is another area where sites can struggle, as the depth to which certain issues are addressed can require people across multiple departments being involved within a single section. While the requirements may seem intuitively easy enough if you sit at Corporate level, the readiness assessments reveal that at site level, the questions require a lot more capacity building and guidance in order for the sites to speak the same language as the Standard does.
If you are thinking about going for ResponsibleSteel certification this year, and would like to assess how ready you are, do get in touch at Priti.Hoffmann@dnvgl.com.
back to news