Our Approach to Quality
We prioritise integrity, credibility, and efficiency, earning the trust of stakeholders, customers and the public through impartial assessments and high-quality services.
FLOCERT´s Quality Policy
In alignment with our mission, vision and values, our quality policy provides a framework to establish FLOCERT´s associated quality objectives. It defines and declares what FLOCERT considers ‘Quality’ and outlines the systems and processes in place to ensure that we meet this definition. It has been developed in compliance with the requirements of ISO 17065 and covers all services provided by FLOCERT.
Our quality policy applies to all FLOCERT employees, freelance auditors, the FLOCERT Supervisory Board and the FLOCERT Impartiality Committee. All employee areas are individually involved in complying with this guideline and are responsible for the quality of their work.
How we ensure quality excellence
To achieve our mission, FLOCERT has set quality objectives in seven areas:
Competences
We do not only carefully select and hire staff based on a core competency model but also ensure that staff competencies are retained, built upon, and enhanced. A dedicated Competence Management team establishes and maintains auditor and operational staff training to allow consistent and reliable delivery of assurance services.
Impartiality
Our certification decisions are based on objective criteria and treat all customers alike. We live impartiality by following strict rules and procedures in our auditing services, which leads to impartial decisions as we triangulate, evaluate, certify, or verify. Read here about our Impartiality Committee.
Confidentiality
We make sure that the data our customers share with us is in good hands. Our customers may entrust us with personal data, confidential information, and business secrets for certification purposes. We fully understand our liability and obligation: FLOCERT has developed and implemented data governance and sharing rules and procedures. In case of appeals, allegations, or complaints, feedback is carefully investigated. All information is kept strictly confidential, and all sources are protected.
Transparency
We transparently inform our new customers about any procedures or requirements they need to fulfil and about changes. Any information about the assurance journey of organisations certified or verified by FLOCERT, such as updated procedures, new assurance and compliance measures and further relevant topics, is communicated to all customers in an accessible and proactive way.
FLOCERT's compliance criteria for the Fairtrade Standard – verifiable control points that translate requirements into action points evaluated during the certification process – are always publicly available on our website.
Our Fairtrade Customer Search Tool makes information about Fairtrade-certified customers, including their current certification status, always publicly available on our website.
System calibration
We regularly revise and update processes. Record keeping and system documentation are highly valued and regular practices. Our feedback culture and open systems of complaints, appeals, and allegations enable continuous system and procedure improvement. We have a quality management system in place.
Customer service
We follow customer service principles and have transparent, timely and honest customer communication and information. Our dedicated team is the focal point for customer relations and is trained regularly.
Data-driven
We use data to enrich and complement our audit and certification scheme to sharpen our ability to certify efficiently and competently. We operate dedicated software tools that support our certification work. In addition, we use and analyse transactional data to highlight supply chain trends and help us to identify and mitigate supply chain risks.
