RECENT CHANGES

Reorganization Fairtrade Product Standards

From the 4^th of October 2011 a new product classification is implemented. This change is part of the New Standards Framework published by Fairtrade International.

The changes are summarized in the graph below, changes are marked bold.

As of October you will be certified against the Fairtrade Product Standard that is mentioned in the applicable green box.

For example, in case you were previously certified for Rooibos against the Tea Standard, you will from now on be certified against the Herbs and Herbal Teas & Spices Standard.

 

Implications
If due to these changes you are now certified against more than one Fairtrade Product Standard while previously you were certified against one Fairtrade Product Standard, this will not affect your certification fee. Your current certificate that makes reference to the old Fairtrade Product Standards remains valid.

 

Questions

In case you or your customer have questions about the validity of your certificate please contact your individual contact person within the Certification Department.

 

Your Certificate: definition of certification scope on your certificate

Besides the change to your certificate as mentioned in the above section, there is another detail we need to announce to you today. Starting from October 2011 FLO-CERT is not publishing any of its certification requirements in certification policies anymore. In case there are certification policies mentioned on your certificate, please be aware that the requirements formerly covered by these policies can now be found in the applicable Public Compliance Criteria List. This means that your certificate stays valid and that you have to look up the applicable certification requirements only in the respective Public Compliance Criteria List and no longer in the certification policies as mentioned on your certificate. Going further FLO-CERT will not imprint any of the certification policies onto its certificates, but will keep the policies as informative documents on its website under http://www.flo-cert.net/flo-cert/37.html. 

 

Change of processes - Corrective measures must be suggested by customers

As of October 2011 FLO-CERT’s customers must develop corrective measures on their own in order to resolve the non-conformities that were detected during an audit. Previously FLO-CERT could also suggest or even impose corrective measures to customers that did not come up with proposals within a defined timeframe. This practise has been stopped by DAkkS (German National Accreditation Body) as it is considered consultancy. According to ISO 65 consultancy is not allowed in certification.

 

Now corrective measure proposals are either confirmed or rejected by FLO-CERT in case the proposed measures are not suitable to achieve compliance with the Fairtrade Standards.

Preferably you as a trader or producer organization can suggest these corrective measures during the audit closing meeting. Suggestions that come in at a later stage after the audit could considerably slow down the process. If you have difficulties in coming up with corrective measures, please contact your certification analyst as soon as possible because the non-suggestion of appropriate measures might lead to the suspension of your certificate.

 

If you have received an audit from FLO-CERT in the past weeks and have been informed that FLO-CERT will impose corrective measure in case you cannot find appropriate proposals, please note that this is incorrect and that the new process applies instead: this means that your certification analyst will provide you with a new deadline for the suggestion of corrective measures and you will need to develop and suggest the corrective measures yourself.

 

Time period for submission of objective evidences

FLO-CERT has adjusted the timelines for the fulfilment of corrective measures.

Now you must give sufficient proof, i.e. appropriate objective evidence, that show that you have implemented the agreed corrective measures within 45 days. In case you have recently received your initial audit as an applicant you have 4 months to submit objective evidences when you are a producer organization. For traders the deadline of 45 days applies.

 

Repeated non-conformities

In order to strengthen the credibility of the certification system FLO-CERT decided to act on repeated non-conformities: If the same major non-conformity arises three times consecutively, you run the risk of having your certificate withdrawn. In case a regular non-conformity is repeated three times a follow-up audit might be scheduled in order to have a closer look at the situation in the field.

 

Repeated non-conformities show that a breach of the Fairtrade Standards has not been solved systematically. Whenever developing a corrective measure for a detected non-conformity it should be designed in a way that the detected problem would not come up again. If it does anyhow we need to assume that the corrective measure was not appropriate in order to solve the problem systematically.

 

Changes of the Prohibited Material List - NSF

Please note that with the NSF (New Standards Framework) new Prohibited Materials Lists (PML) have been released as well. They can be found at the bottom of the standard document. Since these lists contain some new prohibited materials, please ensure that you have studied the red list carefully to ascertain that you are not using any of the newly added materials!

 

To illustrate the importance of this, please note that recently residue tests on some flowers were found to contain Cyfluthrin. Cyfluthrin was not on the previous PML, but is a banned substance on the new red list. Should such a new banned pesticide be found during an audit, this would be a major non-conformity which may lead to the suspension of your certificate!