Thanks for getting back to me.
I have looked on the Sedex portal but I couldn't find anything relevant, and to be honest I didn't think it was a particularly intuitive site.
We are just going through the application process and I wondered if the Z prefix signified that the membership process was not complete?
As for 2-Pillar or 4-Pillar, I'm not sure, it isn't something I am involved with and the person who is dealing with it is on leave at the moment.
The Z prefix definitely isn't related to incomplete membership status. I'd thought they'd standardised to ZCxxxxxxx being a membership number and ZSxxxxxx being site number, so for example my Sedex account might be ZC1234567, and my manufacturing site within this account is ZS7654321 (N.B. You can have multiple manufacturing sites within a single account).
IIRC you get your membership/site number once you've paid and been accepted onto the platform - it's then entirely up to your company to complete the relevant details, as Sedex themselves don't asses these. The purpose of providing them is that you can link to your customers so they can assess them.
The 2-Pillar / 4-Pillar thing relates to the audit type/scope if you go for the full SMETA (Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit) process that involves actual physical audits. This isn't required to be a member of Sedex - lots of companies simply use it as a way to share with their customers the ethical data they've entered into the site questionnaire section, and/or to receive this data from their suppliers.
I agree the site isn't the most intuitive to use (and often doesn't load properly - if it's displaying oddly you might need to refresh the page a few times...), but if you're struggling you could try calling the helpdesk. The number is in the footer at the bottom of the main Sedex page, and for the European helpdesk I think it's a UK number.
