Time for brand owners to submit information to TCO Certified Portal

To remain compliant with the criteria in TCO Certified, brand owners must carry out reviews and submit information to TCO Certified Portal at certain dates every year. Here is a guide that will help you meet all your deadlines.

1. Check the tab socially responsible manufacturing (“SRM”)

The code of conduct annual review must be carried out before the date noted under “Code of conduct compliance”. If your due date is during 2020, please contact an approved verifier as soon as possible.
The due date for the SMR interview based on the self assessment questionnaire (SAQ) is the same date as the code of conduct annual review due date. Check in the comments section if your interview has been completed. Otherwise, contact an approved verifier to schedule the interview.

2. Check the tab “Accepted factory list”

Make sure that factory initial audit reports, corrective action plans and closure audits are submitted on time. The brand owner is responsible for checking the due dates for all the factories they have registered on TCO Certified Portal. If the audit report due date for one or more of the factories you have listed occurs during 2020, please contact an approved verifier as soon as possible.

If no initial audit report is submitted before the due date, then that factory will be removed from the accepted factory list.

If no closure audit is submitted, then the factory will remain listed as risk category 1*.
Ask the factory management to complete and submit the process chemical template. It is the brand owner’s responsibility to check the due date on the accepted factory list and make sure that their listed factories complete the process chemical template, and submit it to an approved verifier on time. If the information is confidential, the completed template can be submitted directly to TCO Development.

If the due date for the process chemical management template occurs during 2020, you need to contact an approved verifier as soon as possible.

If you have any questions, please contact Stephen Fuller, Senior Criteria Manager at TCO Development.

* Category 1 factories

A factory may be categorized as risk category 1 because of two reasons:

No initial audit report and corrective action plan have been submitted. (If the criteria items “60 hours/working week”, “Management system”, “H&S laws” etc. are not color benchmarked (all are empty) then no audit report has been submitted).
The factory has submitted an audit report and corrective action plan, but has not submitted a closure audit report, confirming that non-conformities are closed.