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

Get It Fair is a multistakeholder initiative initially incubated by ICMQ Certification India (organizazion associated with ICMQ group) with the engagement of Associations, Universities, Academies, Consultants, NGO, media and others. The programme has been tested and validated by a group of academics and experts in the field of social responsibility and ESG risks.

In 2021 the scheme has been positively evaluated for accreditation purposes by Accredia in accordance with international standards.

A not for profit Association called Diligentia has been assigned with the role of Programme Operator (PO).

In its role of Get It Fair programme operator the association Diligentia has the following duties:

  • to promote the scheme and support its partners
  • to approve accredited Validation Bodies (and making publicly available the updated list)
  • to train and certify the GIF APs (Accredited Professional) Assessors and Technical Experts (and making publicly available the updated list)
  • to issue the ethical label and to certify the Corporate Sustainability Reporting
  • to promote the 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.