Assessment (Remote and at-site)

The Due Diligence within the GIF ESG Rating scheme consists of a Site Assessment conducted at the organization’s premises.

This type of phisical audit enables to evaluate the exposure level to actual risks that can result into future adverse impacts. For example, only a site visit allows to estimate the exposure level to fire or hazardous chemicals. Similarly, a site visit allows to inspect the stability of a building, the discharge of polluted water or child labour practices.

Therefore, the Assessment according to the GIF Metric, allows to achieve reasonable confidence of the level of exposure to ESG risks.

Governance assessment

Governance assessment

To begin with, the Assessment Team conducts the evaluation of the Governance risk. An Assessor with specific knowledge and experience in the field of Corporate Governance conducts this part of the assessment. It aims to verify the Governance system effectiveness in managing and controlling the ESG risks.

The “Corporate Governance Code” issued by Borsa Italiana (Italian Stock Exchange) is the reference document of the criterion.

The Govenance risk takes into consideration the size of the organization, the complexity of its governance and the composition of the shareholders.

Site visit

The Site Assessment conducted in the organization’s premises is the strenght points of the GIF Due Diligence process to improve the credibility and reliability of the ESG rating.

The GIF approach is based on the following assumption: “without a visit conducted by competent assessors (GIF APs) a reliable ESG risks evaluation with predictive orientation is impossible”.

In the first part of the Audit the Assessors focus the attention on the alignment among Stakeholders engagement, Materiality Matrix, ESG objectives, ESG risk analysis and treatment and operational controls taking into account each and every ESG or social responsibility aspect.

This part aims to verify whether an integrated governance and social responsibility management system is established, implemented, reviewed and improved and covers each and every aspect: social, safety, environment and business ethics.

Predictive evaluation approach to risks

The core part of the site visit is the confirmation of the plausibility of assumptions to evaluate the level of exposure to present or potential specific ESG risks that may result info future adverse impact on the organization and its stakeholders.

Risk evaluation is a professional judgement based on information regarding the dimensions visualized as follow:

The combination of evidences regarding the past, present and future is the only way to estimate, with reasonable confidence, the level of exposure to future risks with predictive orientation (confirmation of plausibility of assumtions).

GIF Assessment app

GIF “ESG Rating scheme” means innovation. The GIF Assessment app, accessible from everywhere at any time via mobile or tablet, embeds the GIF Framework and scoring system and allows to drastically improve effectiveness and efficiency by:

  • standardizing the assessment activity
  • facilitating the calibration among assessors’
  • reducing the time to prepare the final assessment report
Assessment: GIF process

This powerful technology is customized to enable Assessors to:

  • Standadize the Assessment process.
  • Consult an on-line guideline (with the assessment points per area)
  • Facilitate the collection of evidence and picture.
  • Improve the Assessment Team collaboration and consensus
  • Support the scoring activity.
  • Standardize and promptly prepare the reporting
  • Monitor and review the assessment process.
  • Support the Get It Fair outputs (validated claim, Non-financial report, and ethical label) by the means of documented evidence.

Click here to know about the GIF app.

Review

A Reviewer verifies the Assessment Report prepared by the Lead Assessor.

Firstly, the reporting review consists of a cross check whether the evidence gathered at site clealy support the statements. Secondly, the reviewers verify the coherence between the statements, the evidences and the score per area.

In addition, the Reviewer may ask Lead Assessor to provide with further clarification and information.

To conclude, the reviewers prepare the Final Assessment report and submit it to the Scheme Committee.

Decision

The Validation Body has the liability of taking the final Decision whether granting the GIF Responsible Organization validated claim.

With this result, the Final Assessment Report becomes the supporting document for the Claim Validation, the Non-Financial Report and the Ethical Label.

In conclusion, the GIF Due Diligence process is designed and implemented to minimize the risk of deviation among ESG risk evaluation conducted by different Teams across the world.