Advisory reports provide snapshot of sourcing risk and opportunity by country
UL Responsible Sourcing Country Risk Profiles provide explanatory narratives for countries of particular interest to our clients, summarizing the previous year’s labor trends in an individual country. Trending is specifically focused around issues included in the scope of UL Responsible Sourcing’s social compliance audits;
- Laws and regulations
- Child and forced labor
- Freedom of association and collective bargaining
- Discrimination
- Wages and benefits
- Work hours and overtime
- Health and safety, and environment
Country Risk Profiles highlight relevant events related to labor trends found in at least two publicly available sources. Source documents and reports commonly used include, but are not limited to, the U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the International Trade Union Confederation’s Annual Survey of Trade Union Violations, the CIA World Factbook and news outlets.
Country Risk Profiles also include a Country Risk Heat Map graphically presenting a country and its neighboring countries’ Risk Index scores.
Map provided is a conceptual representation and does not accurately reflect the Risk Index scores of the country shown. Risk Index scores are provided at the country-level only and not at the province or state level.
An analysis of UL Responsible Sourcing’s proprietary audit violation data for the preceding year provides a snapshot of the most common audit violations revealed in a profiled country.
Customized Country Risk Profiles
The Customized UL Responsible Sourcing’ Country Risk Profiles are an expanded version of the Country Risk Profile, providing further contextual and comprehensive views of risks and opportunities in a particular country. Clients may choose various topics of interest for in-depth research. Topics used to customize the profiles in the past include:
- Population literacy rates, demographics, and employment concentrations
- Historic and recent developments regarding geography and infrastructure
- Free trade zones and preferential trade agreements
- International labor initiatives relevant to the country
- Government enforcement of labor laws
- Security issues
- Risks particular to certain industries