RJC Certification Requirements: A Preparation Guide
RJC certification requirements cover four areas: written policies that match daily practice, supplier due diligence and traceability, product integrity and disclosure, and a management system that ties it together. Most companies start preparing only after a buyer asks for certification directly, by which point the timeline is already tight and the instinct is to treat it as a paperwork exercise. In practice, RJC certification preparation is closer to a full review of how the business actually operates, and whether that can be shown consistently to someone who wasn't in the room when the decisions were made. That gap between what companies expect and what the process actually involves is where most of the delay comes from.
What are RJC certification requirements?
RJC certification is issued by the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC), an industry body whose Code of Practices sets standards for business ethics, human rights, environmental performance, and responsible sourcing across the jewellery and watch supply chain. Certification is assessed at the company level rather than the product level, through a combination of documentation review, staff interviews, and on-site observation carried out by an accredited third-party auditor. The requirements apply across the full supply chain the company touches, from how materials are sourced to how staff are treated and how records are kept, which is why preparation tends to involve more of the business than people initially expect.
Why preparation matters more than people expect
Companies that start the process without preparing tend to spend a surprising amount of time on things that have nothing to do with the audit itself: reorganising records that already existed somewhere, chasing down who actually owns a particular policy, and responding to findings that could have been caught and fixed months earlier.
Preparing properly before you engage an auditor doesn't just make the audit faster, it usually changes the outcome of it. Most nonconformities come from gaps that were visible internally well before anyone from outside looked at them. It also tends to change the tone of the audit itself, since auditors work faster and raise fewer follow-up questions with a company that can produce what's asked for without delay.
Where companies actually lose the most time
It helps to know where the gaps usually are rather than guessing. In an audit dataset compiled by our audit partner, International Associates Limited (IA), covering 664 active findings across 75 companies certified in Thailand, 88 percent of the minor nonconformities raised were concentrated in one area: health and safety documentation. Not supply chain due diligence, not business ethics policy. H&S records existed in some form but weren't complete, weren't current, or didn't match what was actually happening on the production floor.
That's worth sitting with for a moment, because it runs against how most companies allocate their preparation time. Anti-bribery policy and supplier due diligence tend to get the most attention because they feel like the highest-stakes areas. H&S documentation gets treated as administrative, something to tidy up later. Auditors don't grade it that way: a missing training record or an outdated risk assessment is a nonconformity regardless of how strong the ethics programme looks on paper.
→ See: RJC Audit: What Jewellery and Gemstone Exporters Often Overlook
The five areas you need in place before you start
Across different companies, RJC certification preparation tends to fall into five areas.
1. Policies that match how the business actually operates
RJC expects documented policies covering business ethics, anti-corruption, human rights, and environmental management. Having the documents isn't the bar: the bar is whether staff can describe them accurately and whether what's written matches what's actually done. A generic anti-bribery policy adapted from a template, filed away, and never discussed with anyone tends to be treated by an auditor much the same as having no policy at all. It's worth checking this specifically before an audit is booked, not after, since fixing it under time pressure rarely goes well.
2. Supplier due diligence and traceability
This is usually the area that takes longest to prepare, and it's also one of the first things reviewed. You need to identify your suppliers, explain how they're selected and monitored, and demonstrate basic traceability of materials through your operations. RJC's expectations here are closely aligned with the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains, which is worth knowing on its own terms since buyers increasingly reference that framework directly, separately from RJC certification itself. Traceability doesn't need to be a fully mapped chain-of-custody system from day one, but you do need records that show where materials came from and who verified that.
3. Product integrity and disclosure
You need to show that product information is accurate, and that natural, treated, and synthetic materials are clearly distinguished throughout your records and communications. This matters especially in trading and manufacturing operations, where product claims are part of what's actually being sold, so auditors tend to scrutinise this area closely rather than take it at face value. Even minor inconsistencies between what's stated on an invoice and what's recorded internally tend to draw attention.
4. HR, working conditions, and internal practices
RJC audits look past documentation to how employees are actually treated day to day. Before starting, companies should have formal employment terms, clarity on working hours and wages, and a functioning way for staff to raise concerns. In our experience, most companies already have pieces of this in some form. What's usually missing isn't the practice itself but the documentation trail that shows it's applied consistently, not just when someone happens to ask. A written grievance procedure that nobody has ever used is still better than none, but auditors will usually ask staff directly whether they know it exists.
5. A basic management system
This is what ties the other four together: clear internal ownership of each requirement, a way to monitor whether it's being followed, and periodic review of how the systems are performing. Without this structure, individual practices can be entirely reasonable and the audit can still go badly, because nothing demonstrates that those practices hold up consistently over time rather than in the specific instance an auditor happened to check. It doesn't need to be complex. A simple ownership matrix and a quarterly review meeting is often enough, provided it's actually followed.
What RJC auditors are actually checking
RJC certification is assessed through three channels working together: documentation, staff interviews, and direct observation of operations. The third one is where preparation often breaks down. It isn't enough for a policy to exist on paper if the person actually doing the job describes something different when asked about it directly. Real preparation means the documentation, what staff say in interviews, and what's actually happening on site all tell the same story, because an auditor is specifically listening for where they don't. Preparation that only covers the paperwork tends to fall apart at this stage, since interviews are usually where the real gaps between policy and practice show up first.
How long does RJC certification preparation take?
Timelines vary by starting point. Companies with reasonably organised systems already in place usually need six to nine months to get audit-ready. Those starting with little formal documentation often need closer to a year, mostly because of how long supplier due diligence takes to build out properly. Recertification is usually shorter than the first cycle, since the systems are already established. The main driver of timeline is almost always supplier due diligence and traceability, since that's the area with the most ground to cover and the most dependency on getting information from outside the company itself.
→ See: How Long RJC Certification Takes (and What Affects the Timeline)
Check your own readiness first
Rather than guessing where you stand, it's worth running a structured self-assessment before booking an audit. We built a 72-item RJC Pre-Audit Readiness Checklist that scores readiness across three dimensions: whether a policy or process exists, whether it's documented, and whether it's consistently applied in practice. It covers business ethics, product integrity, supply chain and traceability, labour practices, environmental management, and governance systems, the same ground RJC auditors actually cover.
Most companies we've worked with land somewhere in the middle: real systems already in place, but inconsistent enough that an audit would flag them. Very few are either starting from nothing or genuinely ready to go. Knowing which category you're actually in changes how much lead time is worth planning for.
Frequently asked questions
How long does RJC certification preparation take?
For a single-site company with reasonably organised systems already in place, six to nine months before the audit is realistic. Companies starting with little formal documentation often need closer to a year, mostly because of how long supplier due diligence takes to build out properly.
What is the most common reason for RJC nonconformities?
Health and safety documentation, by a wide margin, based on an audit dataset of 664 findings across 75 Thailand-certified companies compiled by International Associates Limited (IA). It's rarely the area companies expect going in, since anti-bribery and supply chain policy tend to get more attention during preparation.
Do you need a consultant to get RJC certified?
No. Some companies prepare on their own, particularly when someone internally already has relevant audit experience. Most bring in outside support mainly to save time, since a large share of preparation work is repetitive and easy to get wrong on a first attempt.
Is RJC certification preparation the same as the audit itself?
No. Preparation is everything done beforehand: policies, records, self-assessment, and closing gaps before anyone external gets involved. The audit is a separate, formal review carried out afterward by an accredited third-party firm.
Getting started
RJC certification is manageable once preparation happens ahead of the audit rather than during it. For most companies, this isn't about building everything from scratch. It's about structuring what already exists so it can be shown clearly and consistently, and knowing in advance where the real gaps are rather than finding out from an auditor partway through the process. Companies that approach it this way tend to move through the audit itself with fewer surprises and fewer corrective actions afterward.