Due to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s declaration concerning the COVID-19 pandemic, SIZA will be implementing an audit procedure that will allow Environmental Third-Party audits to continue. While still adhering to the SIZA Environmental Audit Process and Methodology (APM), two options will exist.
On the 19th of November 2019, SIZA publicly opened the applications for all independent third-party audit companies to apply to become recognised to conduct SIZA Environmental audits.
For the 2019/2020 sample group, a total of 72 farms were verified of which the majority were located in the Western Cape.
From 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020, 1 188 SIZA members have completed their Environmental Self-Assessment Questionnaires (SAQs) on the SIZA platform, of which 1 127 were approved and 61 were reviewed and sent back for the necessary corrections to be made.
The new Sedex SAQ was released late in February this year. The previous SAQ which is now renamed “Legacy SAQ” is available and visible to markets.
During 2019, 627 SIZA Ethical audits were conducted. Out of this total, 94% have been completed in full, and a further 6% are in the process of completing the required corrective actions.
Amidst the Coronavirus, South Africa promulgated strict lockdown regulations since 27 March 2020. This resulted in limited access to facilities, and audits were not able to continue as usual.