Over the last several years, SIZA and the LEAF Marque programme have aligned their efforts in providing South African producers with a time and cost-effective approach when it comes to conducting third-party audits against these standards. Based on the high level of equivalence between the SIZA Social and Environmental Standards compared to the LEAF Marque Standard, an agreement was reached whereby a full third-party audit can be conducted, based on the SIZA Environmental Standard with an additional Bolt-on on the same day(s) to cover the remaining requirements which are specific for the LEAF Marque Standard.
- This process will allow a producer to register for the SIZA Environmental programme and become a member of the LEAF programme while completing only one Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) on their MySIZA platform.
- The producer will then indicate whether the LEAF LSFR questions should be included on their SAQ in question A4.1. This will open up the additional questions that must be completed.
- Once done, the producer can schedule their SIZA Environmental audit with the LEAF Bolt-on by the same audit firm and auditor, which will save cost and time. This option can also be done in combination with the producer’s GLOBALG.A.P. IFA audit resulting in further cost and time savings.
- The producer will receive one audit report and CAP report for their SIZA Environmental audit with the LEAF Bolt-on, and once all the corrective actions have been completed, receive one Audit Completion Letter containing both the SIZA and the LEAF logos.
Currently the SIZA Environmental audit with the LEAF Bolt-On can be done by three mutually approved audit firms, namely NSF, SGS, and Control Union. Although these firms are approved firms for SIZA and LEAF Marque, please verify with your buyers if they have any specific preference on which audit firm to use because it does not mean that they are necessarily approved by all buyers for the SIZA Social audit as well.
For the full rules around how this process works, view the Audit Rules document here: https://siza.co.za/wp-content/uploads/SIZA-_LEAF_Audit_Rules_FINAL_2024.pdf
View the additional checklist questions here: https://siza.co.za/wp-content/uploads/LEAF-Marque-Standard-v16.1-Siza-bolt-on-modules-checklist.xlsx