SMETA Secures SSCI Recognition!

We’re delighted to share that SMETA 7.0 is now formally recognised by The Consumer Goods Forum’s Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative (SSCI), after completing the SSCI Benchmarking Process.  

SSCI Recognition strengthens Sedex and SMETA’s roles in driving sustainable business practices at scale. For businesses, it means greater confidence in audit findings and a trusted foundation for ethical sourcing strategies.

As global supply chains face increasing scrutiny, reliable tools like SMETA 7 are essential for meeting due diligence obligations, managing risk and advancing positive impact across industries.

“I’m so pleased that SMETA 7.0 has achieved this major milestone. The Consumer Goods Forum’s SSCI is a highly respected initiative that confers significant credibility on the schemes within this community.”

“Being SSCI-recognised provides our customers and their stakeholders with powerful, independent validation of SMETA’s rigour and comprehensiveness. We’re proud our solutions empower businesses to drive transparency, continuous improvement and responsible sourcing worldwide.”

Jon Hancock, CEO, Sedex

With over 60,000 in-person audits conducted yearly, SMETA remains the world’s most widely used social audit to assess labour, health and safety, environmental, and business ethics risks at supply chain worksites.

This recognition under both the Processing & Manufacturing and Primary Production SSCI scopes confirms SMETA’s alignment with the SSCI Social Compliance Benchmark, reinforcing its credibility and value for companies seeking robust due diligence solutions.

Why SSCI Recognition matters

The SSCI, an industry solution of The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), benchmarks and recognises auditing, monitoring and certification programmes that meet industry expectations for sustainability and ethical practices.

By “verifying the verifiers,” SSCI provides an additional layer of trust, enabling businesses to make more informed sourcing decisions.

For our customers, SSCI Recognition offers:

• Independent validation: Third-party assurance of SMETA’s robustness, credibility and reliability
• Industry alignment: Confidence that SMETA meets evolving global standards and regulatory requirements
• Enhanced transparency: The SSCI Benchmarking Process included a public consultation and external expert review.

“As the world’s most widely used social audit platform, spanning 35 sectors in more than 180 countries, we are delighted to welcome SMETA 7.0 into the SSCI community of recognised schemes.”

Didier Bergeret, Director of Sustainability at
The Consumer Goods Forum

Evolving the SMETA methodology

Launched in October 2025, SMETA 7.0 represents the most comprehensive evolution of Sedex’s audit methodology in years. Key enhancements include:

• Revised issue titles to improve detection of critical concerns such as living wages and recruitment fees.
• A new “Collaborative Action Required” finding type to highlight complex issues requiring multi-stakeholder support.
• Introducing Management Systems Assessment for proactive risk identification.
• Clearer expectations for workplace conditions to ensure consistent compliance assessment.

Further improvements made during the SSCI benchmarking process strengthened requirements around human rights training and documentation, expanded guidance on forced and child labour, and clarified chemical usage standards.

We remain committed to continuously improving its solutions for maximum effectiveness, capability and value. We look forward to embracing opportunities to make further improvements in collaboration with the SSCI, as part of being a recognised scheme.

See how SMETA can supercharge your supply chain assessment – get in touch with our team.

For more information about the SSCI, please visit the CGF website.