General principles

Every effort will be made by the directors of ECO AUDIT SA to ensure that disputes with clients and third parties are amicably resolved. A failure to do so will result in action from SANAS with the possible sanction of accreditation being withdrawn. SANAS ensures that complaints against the services of its applicant or accredited organisations (conformity assessment body or CAB) are first addressed by the CAB through their own complaint procedure.

Generally, these are to be handled as per the requirements of ISO/IEC 17020 and P 12-10. SANAS will ensure that an applicant or accredited CAB first can resolve a complaint raised against them, by advising the complainant to approach ECO AUDIT SA directly, this opportunity should not be missed. If the CAB has not satisfactorily resolved the complaint within a reasonable length of time (e.g., three months), the complainant has the right to refer the matter to SANAS. Once the validity has been confirmed, SANAS will then investigate the matter within its own procedures.

Where the complaint against ECO AUDIT SA or any CAB indicates non-compliance with SANAS accreditation requirements, or contravention with the Accreditation of Conformity Assessment, Calibration and Good Laboratory Practice Act 19 of 2006, then SANAS will immediately address the issue directly with the CAB. Information about a CAB obtained from sources other than the CAB shall be kept confidential between the CAB and SANAS. The provider (source) of this information shall be kept confidential to SANAS and not shared with the CAB, unless agreed by the source.

ECO AUDIT SA complaints procedure

The ECO AUDIT SA complaints procedure as set out below shall be referred to in the EPC Assessment Report.

Clients can submit their complaints to the project co-ordinator at info@ecoaudit.co.za. The project co-ordinator will communicate with the client by email to acknowledge receipt of a complaint and enter the complaint into the complaints register. The project co-ordinator will then monitor and progress the complaint and continue to communicate with the client until the matter is finalised.

The complaints procedure is to provide opportunity for client issues to be raised on the return section of the EPC Assessment Report, which requires client acceptance and the comments section adjacent. It is anticipated that any dissatisfactions will be voiced via this facility at an early stage, and it will be role of the projects co-ordinator to escalate these matters either to operational TS or TM staff or directors, or if a legal risk is anticipated, to the legal director.

Client complaints that are directed to the operation staff will be of a nature that may require a reconsideration of the calculation or the data gathering. It will be incumbent on the TS to gather full details of the complaint and data items, which may be in dispute and to discuss the matter with the TM. The TM will decide whether a complete review of the assessment process is required or whether the complaint lacks substance. The decision shall be referred to the project co-ordinator who shall inform the client thereof.

Complaints that are considered to lack substance shall be reported to the project co-ordinator that no action is required.

Complaints that require reworking shall be replaced by a new project with a new project brief and the client advised.

Complaints that point toward deliberate misstatement of data will be reported to the legal director.

Client complaints that are directed to the legal director will be of the nature of a deliberate inflation or deflation of data values to enhance or devalue the energy performance scale or results, and this may be an action of the client, ECO AUDIT SA staff or contracted persons. As legal claims or SANAS involvement may result these matters are to be timeously attended to and resolved.

The Terms and Conditions of ECO AUDIT SA quotations include provision for review of disputes by way of arbitration.

Any appeal against the decision of the ECO AUDIT SA directors set out above will be referred for arbitration by the legal director.

The TM and the legal director shall table any pending or outstanding arbitration matters with the board of directors on a quarterly basis for discussion in a meeting of the directors. The item shall be recorded in the minutes by the secretary.

The project co-ordinator shall table any unresolved disputes at the quarterly meeting of the directors.

Any unresolved disputes or arbitration proceedings will be advised to the internal audit team.