Reviewing the Bonsucro assurance system

31st July 2024

Accurately detecting human rights violations or showing the farmers and mills are not contributing to deforestation can be a huge challenge. To remain credible, voluntary sustainability schemes need to regularly review and improve their processes and rules and stress-test their rigour and accuracy.

Bonsucro is no exception, so we have started a review of our assurance system.

What is an assurance system?

Assurance systems are complex. They include certification rules and audit procedures but also oversight of certification bodies and grievance procedures. All these elements work in conjunction with standards in sustainability schemes like Bonsucro. Standards set the requirements needed to meet certification, whereas assurance sets the rules to prove that the requirements have been met. An assurance system establishes the rules and requirements that the different stakeholders within certification must comply with in order to protect the credibility of the programme.

Why are we reviewing our assurance system?

It's good practice to periodically review an assurance system in a sustainability standard to guarantee it's up-to-date. It helps ensure that the system is credible and reduces the risks associated with certification and inaccurate sustainability claims.

In addition, assurance systems need to adapt to the needs of the different sectors and actors involved in certification. For example in our case, we have seen a big increase in the number of operators producing bioenergy and our EU RED Standard is now relevant to a bigger proportion of our members. As external schemes like EU RED evolve, it's important to ensure that our assurance system adapts too so that they are still compatible.

Another reason we are reviewing our assurance system is to make sure that we are incorporating new technologies and data-driven audit methodologies. Last year we launched our new digitisation strategy and our assurance system needs to be brought in line with our vision of being a more agile, data-driven organisation.

Finally, we went through a thorough process to revise our Production Standard. The new standard has different criteria to help make our system more robust. We now need to look at our certification rules to make sure they are equally robust and aligned with the changes in our standard.

What will the revision entail?

The revision will be a complex process that will take significant investment. To make the process more manageable, we will be tackling the work in phases - first looking at our certification protocol and then looking at other assurance documents.

The Certification Protocol is the main document that describes the assurance system. It sets the rules for the certification process and explains the audit and certification system for the different standards we have. Our protocol also contains the requirements that our licensed certification bodies have to fulfill to carry out audits and make the certification decision against the Bonsucro Standards. In addition, it lays out the rules for Bonsucro certificate holders, and the licensed training providers who offer capacity-building services to the Bonsucro members.

Improving the Certification Protocol will cover four main elements:

1. Merge the different rules of the audit and certification process into one document.
2. Review some of the requirements after receiving feedback from our stakeholders.
3. Update our rules in accordance with changes relevant to the sustainability standards organisations. For example, we have to ensure that we comply with ISEAL's latest Code of Good Practice and are compliant with EU RED.
4. Align our rules to our version 5.2 of our Production Standard which was launched in July 2023 and came into effect in December 2023.

In addition to updating our processes and rules, we will aim to make the system easier for everyone to use. That will include finding ways to automate processes and digitalise information, making it more accessible. To make these improvements, we will also invest in capacity building within our Standards & Assurance team.

We want to be transparent with the revision and keep our members updated on our progress. To ensure that our members' views are represented as we are on this journey, we will work closely with the Members' Council. We are also planning consultations with external stakeholders such as the licensed certification bodies, and training providers.

What's the timeline?

Our Board of Directors approved our workplan for the assurance revision in March 2024. Since then, our Standards & Assurance team has been processing feedback about our systems. The team has also established an assurance committee which includes representatives from the different teams across Bonsucro. Ideas of what needs to be improved are being discussed with the committee and with our Technical Advisory Committee which is part of our governance.

At the moment, the team are working on the new certification protocol and we expect the first draft to be completed by September 2024. The new protocol will then go through a consultation period with selected stakeholders including certification bodies and the Members' Council.

We expect the new Certification Protocol and the accompanying assurance documents will be available in March or April of 2025.

If you have any questions about the process, please contact our assurance team via [email protected]

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