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Social Accountability Accreditation Services (SAAS) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that accredits and monitors certification bodies to audit for social compliance standards. SAAS is headquartered in New York City and has representatives worldwide. There are 21 SAAS Accredited certification bodies for the SA8000 standard. Over 3,000 facilities in more than 60 countries are certified to SA8000, and over 1.8 million workers are employed by SA8000 certified facilities. SAAS is also the accreditation body for Business Social Compliance Initiative, Magen Tzedek , and InterAction programs. SAAS is a full member of the ISEAL Alliance.

SAAS’ work
SAAS is an accreditation body. SAAS manages and directs accreditation activities, including the granting, maintaining, extending, reducing, suspending and withdrawing of accreditation for the SA8000, BSCI and InterAction social standards and verification codes. The primary activities for SAAS are: to accredit and monitor organizations seeking to act as certifiers of compliance with social standards, including the Social Accountability 8000 standard for ethical working conditions and the Magen Tzedek ethical food certification; to offer accreditation services to certification bodies; to determine the qualifications of such organizations to perform full, reliable, and impartial audits of employers against specified social standards; to provide confidence to all stakeholders in SAAS accreditation decisions and in the certification decisions of its accredited certification bodies; to continually improve the SAAS accreditation function activities and systems, in compliance with ISO/IEC Guide 17011 and SAAS Procedure 201, “Accreditation of Certification Bodies of Social Accountability Systems”; to be impartial and fair to all applicant and accredited certification bodies.

History and Background
SAAS started as a department of Social Accountability International in 1997 and became its own independent, not-for-profit organization in 2007. SAAS has been accrediting certification bodies for the SA8000 standard since 1998. In addition, SAAS now accredits the GoodWeave standard, Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) code of conduct, and the Magen Tzedek ethical kosher food certification. SAAS also worked with InterAction to develop a standard for charities that participate in child sponsorship activities. This process included creating protocols, training, and a certification regime to ensure that child sponsorship programs were being run responsibly and working towards continuous improvement in performance and accountability.

SA8000
SA8000 is a social accountability standard based on Core ILO conventions and norms in labor and human rights. SA8000 takes a management systems approach to improve labor standards at facilities worldwide. SA8000 is based on ILO and UN conventions and national laws, addresses nine major components of workplace human rights, and applies across all industrial sectors. The nine major components of SA8000 include: child labor, forced labor, health and safety, freedom of association and right to collective bargaining, discrimination, disciplinary practices, working hours, remuneration, and management systems.