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For some years now, companies, NGOs and trade unions working within ethical trade have been concerned that traditional auditing is: at best – easy to fake, at worst – a flawed approach.

Recently, some of Impactt’s clients have developed an interest in pushing the involvement of worker and workers’ organisations further by experimenting with participatory approaches to social auditing.

The participatory model moves away from the imposition of controlled measures. It puts workers at the centre, empowering them to take the lead in identifying and resolving their issues. The workers direct the exercise, while the professional listens and learns.

Participatory auditing has been discussed in theoretical terms by academics and researchers. But perhaps now is the right time for companies to adopt this approach, due to the significant benefits it brings to the business and to workers.

Participatory audits involve the most vulnerable workers and capture less visible issues such as discrimination, harassment and abuse which are often excluded from traditional, tick-box audits. They provide a truer picture of working conditions and local realities; following a ‘bottom up’ approach where workers tell the auditor what they need and what would make a genuine improvement to their lives. This approach can help brands improve the quality of their audit programmes and manage their risks more effectively.

Workers are actively involved in all stages of a participatory audit and the auditor uses a range of interview and visual tools to capture workers’ viewpoints. Besides workers, participatory audits also involve other stakeholders such as trade unions and community leaders. This represents a more sustainable approach to auditing since the information and ‘solutions’ come from the intended beneficiaries themselves.

Further, participatory audits involve unique reporting tools which provide rich, empirical insights. However, they are by no means restricted to qualitative data outputs and through robust sampling and triangulation of data points, participatory audits can also generate numerical data which is easy to understand.

Impactt believes the participatory approach is the more ‘grown-up’ approach to social auditing. It appreciates the ‘greys’- recognising that compliance is not an absolute goal but an ongoing process and that workers lie at the heart of this process.

It is encouraging to hear brands have started experimenting with the participatory approach. Levis Strauss is known to have conducted pilot projects and initial trials of worker-dialogue based systems to improve factory conditions. Impactt congratulates brands who have started this journey and hope that others will be joining them.

This is fascinating, and made me think of the parallel move in education and youth consultancy.

In fact it makes me wonder whether your audits ever include more creative approaches?

I wonder whether doing work with drama, music and film would be an interesting way of extracting what people really want and really need?

Hi Tone, really interesting thought. We get nearer to this kind of thing when we are working with groups trying to shift their perceptions and change their attitudes to themselves and their potential. We sometimes use art and singing to encourage former child workers to dream about a better future not involving factory work. By getting them to visualise their dreams,we can encourage them to stick with school to reach these objectives.

What a lovely image! This stuff is so important when working with young people – fascinating to see how participatory educational approaches are being applied in this context. Keep us posted on this!

[...] Ethical trade consultants Impactt are now using creative approaches to help former victims of child labour. [...]

Hi there guys!

An interesting read! I think community arts can be really effective at exploring the different facets that come into play with social injustice.

The arts, especially music is a major passion for the majority of young people. It can serve to help them to see themselves and the world differently; the ‘greyness’ you were talking about earlier, allowing for a positive contribution to their own futures – as well as society’s.

I would be really interested to learn about participatory audits that included music making.