Risk Identification and Management Advisory Services

As the global marketplace expands, the ability to thoroughly assess sourcing risks in new and existing supply chains is critical. UL helps businesses factor sustainability and social responsibility into their sourcing decisions. Definition UL helps clients identify and manage supply chain risks with in-depth business intelligence, including global and country risk indices, dynamic risk assessment tools, emerging markets research and onsite risk assessments. Benefits Failing to factor sustainability and social responsibility into business decisions can impact quality, cost and time within the value chain and expose companies to costly compliance issues. UL provides the tools needed to help identify and manage risks so companies can avoid or minimize issues that may adversely impact brand value. Our services include: UL's Global Risk Index measures social and labor risks by examining economic, social, political and labor rights factors. Globally respected indices from groups such as the United Nations, Transparency International, The Heritage Foundation and Freedom House are analyzed, normalized and scored for side-by-side comparisons by our extensive network of researchers. Key to the report is UL's internal data, anonymously gathered from nearly 20,000 audits each year. This micro-level information from workplace assessments is aggregated and provides rich insights into the practical reality across the supply chain. Country risk profiles are developed for every country in the world and track responsible sourcing news and trends in 10 categories, including working hours and overtime, wages and benefits, environmental responsibility, and abuse of labor. Customized country risk profiles provide research on client-specific topics. These risk profiles are designed specifically to help meet each of a client’s unique global sourcing needs and program measurements criteria. Customized risk calculators and scorecards examine risk metrics informed by client parameters to create a detailed picture of relevant risks. Calculators and scorecards can assess various sourcing risks, ranging from macro level indicators such as country and product risk to micro level indicators such as subcontractor or facility risk. Risk research provides empirical studies on labor, human rights and environmental risks related to specific countries and industries. Corporate social responsibility management systems assessmentsenable a targeted, onsite risk assessment of a client’s key supply chain based on an evaluation of management systems to inform about the level of risk and potentially redirect or refocus a client’s social compliance program.