What is

Get It Fair “GIF ESG and reporting assurance scheme” is a program aiming to grant to organizations the right to use the “GIF Responsible Organization” mark.

The program has been positively assessed for accreditation purposes in accordance with internationally recognized standards (ISO/IEC 17029) by a national accreditation body for two scopes:

  • ESG Rating: determination of the exposure level to risks that can result into adverse impacts relating to Governance, Social, Safety, Environment and Business Ethics issues
  • Assurance of sustainability reporting: conformity assessment to attest the compliance of a sustainability reporting prepared by an organization with specific sustainability reporting standards
Scope

Benefits

The programme and the GIF Responsible Organization mark help enterprises create more value, by:

  • identifying opportunities to reduce unexpected costs;
  • improving and implementing a social responsibility management system
  • strengthening management of non-financial and operational risks;
  • getting the Corporate Sustainability Reporting certified and
  • improving stakeholders’ relationships.

Features

The GIF ESG Rating scheme generally applies to all kinds of organization regardless of sector, size, and location.

More specifically the main features of the programme are:

  • Voluntary
  • Focused on organization ethical characteristics
  • Compliance with international standard (ISO 17033 and ISO 17029)
  • Comprehensive of all the social responsibility aspects
  • Site Visit (not only documentation review)
  • Experienced and certified assessors
  • Orientation towards predective risk evaluation
  • Scoring based metric (quantitative)
  • Corporate Sustainability Reporting certification
  • Periodical validation (to monitor the ESG rating)

The Third party ESG evaluation and validation conducted by accredited validation bodies provides confidence of competence, transparency, impartiality and confidentiality.

Programme structure

Get It Fair program consists of the following components:

Framework: conceptual structure intended to serve as term of reference for conducting the ESG risks evaluation. It consists of three main components:

  • Principles according to ISO 26000
  • Criteria: referring to OECD Due Diligence Guidance, ISO 26000 and other standards
  • Scoring System: metric used to evaluate the exposure level to risks against the criteria

Validation: process established in compliance with ISO 17029 to confirm the plausibility of the assumptions regarding the exposure levels to risks assessed against the Framework. The validation process includes:

  • Initial validation
  • Periodical validation assessment: to confirm the rating established

Recognitions: set of validation process output including:

  • Ethical claim and mark validated (in compliance with ISO 17033)
  • Ethical label (in compliance with ISO 17033)
  • Final Assessment Report
  • Non-financial report (in compliance with EU Directives on Corporate Sustainability Reporting
  • Pavillon

GIF Fam: network of partners involved in the programme implementation and support. The GIF Fam includes:

  • Validations (list of positively assessed companies
  • Validation Bodies (accredited according to ISO 17029 and the Programme)
  • Committed (partner providing services to companies or promoting the programme)
  • Ambassador (partner promoting the programme and the validated organizations worldwide)
  • GIF AP (professional certified for their competence and experience in the programme issues)
  • Academies (training centers promoting and delivering approved training courses within the programme)

Governance

The Governance system of the “Get It Fair – GIF ESG Rating and reporting assurance” scheme has been designed to prevent any conflict of interest and to ensure high indepencence of each party involved in its management.

The scheme owner, intended as “Organization(s) responsible for developing and maintaining a CAS – Conformity Assessment Scheme” (IAF MD25) is a legal entity called:

  • Holonic Network
  • Via Washington 96
  • 20146 Milan (Italy).

A technical committee has been directly involved in setting the rules and procedures that describe the object of conformity assessment, identifies the specified requirements and provides the methodology for performing conformity assessment (as required by ISO 17000).

A Stakeholder Committee has been incorporated by engaging a wide range of interested parties including Institutions, Associations, Universities, Academies, Consultants, NGO, media and others.

A Validation Team consisting of a group of academics and experts in the field of social responsibility and ESG risks has validated the scheme (criteria, evaluation process, metrics, etc.).

In 2021 the scheme has been submitted to Accredia (national accreditation body signatory of a MLA agreement and IAF Member) and evaluated for accreditation purposes in accordance with ISO/IEC 17029 and the procedure specified in the document EA 22-1. A MOU between the scheme owner and Accredia has been signed. Accredia has the duty of providing the market and the interested parties with confidence of:

  • Initial accreditation of CABs (Conformity Assessment Bodie) against the standard ISO/IEC 17029 and the Get It Fair programme
  • Monitoring the CABs’ activity

In 2023 the Scheme Owner has assigned to an independent and non profit organization, Diligentia ETS, the responsibility of:

  • promoting the scheme and support its partners
  • approving accredited Validation Bodies (and making publicly available the updated list)
  • training professional to become GIF APs (Accredited Professional) Assessors and Technical Experts
  • making publicly available the updated list of certified GIF AP
  • promoting the list of GIF Responsible Organizations worldwide

GIF APs are professional meeting specific criteria, completing a training programme and certified by an accredited body. Only GIF AP Assessors and GIF AP TE (Technical Experts) can ba appointed by a Validation Body to conduct the Due Diligence activity.

Only Approved Validation Bodies by Diligentia (Programme Operator) are authorized to conduct the validation process within the programme. This Bodies take the decision whether granting the GIF Responsible Organization.