Services Finder Social Responsibility and Accountability Auditing
Corporate accountability is essential to success in today's market. UL's Responsible Sourcing team provides global monitoring, training and consulting services to help customers comply with social and environmental laws and standards across the entire supply chain.
Overview
Definition
UL's social responsibility and accountability audits measure social and environmental compliance with international standards and regulations.
Benefits
Gain immediate insight into supply chains and evaluate suppliers' social and environmental compliance with our expertise in national and international labor standards; local knowledge of workplace practices; global operational capacity; and off-the-shelf, standardized audit protocols, assessments and reporting tools.
We conduct over 20,000 workplace assessments each year. We have more than 200 auditors on staff in 32 countries, and our employees speak 45 languages.
In addition, our global network of in-house researchers maintains comprehensive libraries of country labor law profiles, annual social responsibility risk indices and global minimum wage data.
UL's Responsible Sourcing workplace assessment informs customers with key insights and intelligence to make critical business sourcing decisions.
UL's Responsible Sourcing workplace assessment measures compliance with national legislation and international standards for:
- Child labor
- Collective bargaining
- Discrimination
- Document review
- Dormitories
- Environment
- Freedom of association
- Harassment and abuse
- Health and safety
- Prison or forced labor
- Wages
- Work hours
In addition, UL can assess compliance with company-specific standards such as a supplier code of conduct or a variety of industry standards.
Our extensive social monitoring accreditations include:
- Social Accountability International (SAI)
- Fair Labor Association (FLA)
- Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP)
- International Council of Toy Industries (ICTI)
- Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI)
- Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex). UL is a Sedex member ethical trade audit (SMETA) provider and a member of the associate auditor group (AAG).
- Initiative Clause Sociale (ICS)
Deliverables
Details
Products this service applies to
Apparel and textiles, dietary supplements, electronics and electrical, food and beverage, footwear and leather goods, general consumer merchandise, health and beauty care, household chemicals, jewelry, watches, OTC/pharmaceuticals, premiums and promotional products, store brands/private label, toys, nursery and children's products
Applicable Standards
Conformity Certification for the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC)
Promotes responsible ethical, human rights, social and environmental practices in a transparent and accountable manner throughout the jewelry industry from mine to retail
Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP)
Provides a global cross-industry platform to promote the exchange of knowledge and best practices in order to build comparability and transparency between existing social compliance and environmental compliance systems
International Council of Toy Industries (ICTI) CARE Process
The toy industry's ethical manufacturing program aimed at ensuring safe and humane workplace environments for toy factory workers worldwide
Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI)
Business-led initiative that provides a common code of conduct and supports efforts toward building an ethical supply chain by providing a step-by-step development-oriented system, applicable to all sectors and all sourcing countries
Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) and EICC Conflict-Free Smelter (CFS) Program
Code of conduct provides guidelines for performance and compliance with critical CSR policies. EICC provides tools to audit compliance with the code and helps companies report progress.
Initiative Clause Sociale (ICS)
Shared code of ethics, tools and audit protocols predominately for France-based companies
Sedex (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange)
A database designed to capture audit data and allow audited sites to interact with other members of the supply chain to show updates on efforts toward corrective action
Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA)
A process for a common best practice guide, audit report format and corrective action format; built around measuring compliance against the ETI Base Code
Fair Factories Clearinghouse (FFC)
Software portal for sharing data from workplace assessments and communicating corrective actions
Fair Labor Association (FLA)
Common adoption of workplace standards, monitoring and reporting
Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP)
Five-step certification system, focused on lawful, humane and ethical manufacturing throughout the world
Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI)
Improving working conditions through a commitment to ETI's Base Code and Principles of Implementation
Social Accountability International (SAI) SA 8000
Social certification standards for decent workplaces, across all industrial sectors
International Finance Corporation (IFC) Sustainability Framework
Set of performance standards and guidelines on social and environmental sustainability for financial investing
European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
A clearly defined set of standards around governance and sustainability for financial investing
Additional Information
For more information on UL's social responsibility and accountability auditing, please e-mail us at RSinfo@ul.com.
