Quality assurance - audits
Why does BASTA conduct annual audits?
The BASTA system is a self-declaration system in which affiliated companies carry out the entire process themselves: assessing articles, retaining all supporting documentation, and updating assessments and registrations when required. To ensure that registered articles maintain the high level of quality required by the system, BASTA conducts annual audits of affiliated companies.
All companies that have joined the BASTA system and register products have agreed to be audited. At the time of the audit, the company must be able to provide complete documentation for its assessments, including assessment summaries and supporting documentation
We also recommend completing our e-learning about audits and the documentation that must be submitted.
How does an audit work?
Before the audit, the company will be contacted by BASTA. It is therefore important that the company has specified the correct contact person. A company selected for audit must submit its procedure, assessment summaries, and supporting documentation for selected articles.
For more information, see the criteria document and audit report template on our document page.
During the audit, the following will be reviewed, among other things:
- Compliance with the organisational criteria.
- Assessments and supporting documentation for a selection of registered products.
- Documentation from suppliers used as supporting evidence in the assessment process.
During the audit, documentation demonstrating compliance with the criteria must be submitted. This applies to the mandatory criteria areas as well as any optional criteria areas for which information has been provided.
Organisational criteria - mandatory
- Responsibilities and competence
- Assessment summary, assessment and supporting documentation
- Updating assessments when changes occur
- BASTA audits
- Marketing
- For detailed information, plrease refer to the BASTA systems criteria document.
Assessment of articles
For all optional criteria areas where information has been provided, supporting documentation must be submitted for audit. If information has been provided under the Health and Environmental Hazards criteria area, the assessment summary and the supporting documentation used as the basis for the assessment must be submitted for audit.
Information on how assessments and assessment summaries should be prepared is described under the criterion “Assessment and Supporting Documentation” in the Criteria Document.
For detailed information about the criteria, please refer to the BASTA system Criteria Document.
Once the documentation has been submitted and reviewed, the company will be contacted by the auditor to arrange a digital meeting. During the meeting, the auditor reviews the documentation together with the company in accordance with the BASTA audit report.
Following the audit, any non-conformities must be corrected within three months. If serious non-conformities are identified during the audit, BASTA reserves the right to unpublish registered articles until all non-conformities have been addressed.
Onboarding-audit
Companies that have recently joined the BASTA system and have registered and published their first articles will be contacted to undergo an onboarding audit. This audit is designed to help companies get started with their assessments and registrations in the right way.
The onboarding audit also provides guidance on how the BASTA system works, what information is available, and how your company can present registered products and demonstrate how they comply with the requirements of external stakeholders and certification schemes.
Our auditors
BASTA engages external experts with documented knowledge of the BASTA system criteria and assessment procedures to carry out audit activities. The following companies are approved BASTA auditors: