Modern Slavery Statement - 2024

Modern Slavery Act 2015 - Transparency Statement 2024

LRQA is committed to preventing modern slavery and human trafficking throughout our organisation and our supply chain. This statement highlights activities we have taken and will continue to take to combat the risk of modern slavery in our organisation and supply chain.  

Business overview

LRQA is a leading global assurance partner, bringing together unrivalled expertise in assessment, advisory, inspection and cybersecurity services to help our clients negotiate a rapidly changing risk landscape. Operating in more than 120 countries and recognised by over 30 accreditation bodies worldwide, LRQA covers almost every sector to achieve our purpose: shaping a better future together.
 
We’re proud of LRQA’s heritage, but it’s who we are today that really matters, because that’s what shapes how we partner with our clients tomorrow. By combining strong values and decades of experience in risk management with a keen focus on the future, we’re here to support clients build a safer, cleaner, more resilient and more ethical business. 

Our Planet, Our Plan is LRQA's commitment to being an ethical, responsible and sustainable company. It is made up of environment, social and governance goals to be achieved by 2030 in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It is a window into our business, reporting on our priorities openly and honestly, including where we have progressed and where we will continue to improve. 

Our supply chain

As a professional service provider, we purchase a limited number of goods and mainly use subject matter experts who operate out of their own small to medium enterprises for services to support our business. 

Our strategic procurement aims include:

• Improving our due diligence activities for new suppliers and monitoring the performance of all suppliers against these requirements. In 2024 we launched our new supplier onboarding process, this now gives LRQA the oversight of our supply chain and ensuring that only suppliers that pass our due diligence are used. The Procurement team use this to understand suppliers’ risk.
• Maintaining a high level of ethical standards within our supply chain only working with supplier who meet our minimum criteria and that have been approved by the group procurement team.

Our position on modern slavery

As we set out in our Code of Ethics, LRQA has a zero-tolerance policy on modern slavery and human trafficking internally within our company and externally in our supply chain. We do not tolerate modern slavery or human trafficking, and we demand the same commitment from those we work with. 

In 2023, we introduced our Business Partner Code of Conduct for more information on this please visit Governance (lrqa.com), which sets out the principles we expect our external business partners to follow in their day-to-day activities for LRQA, including addressing modern slavery. The Business Partner Code of Conduct is now embedded in our new supplier onboarding process, and we require all sign up to it (or have an equivalent policy in place).

In 2023 we launched an independent whistleblowing channel, LRQA SpeakUp, to provide a streamlined channel for colleagues to report concerns regarding any potential modern slavery issues within our business or supply chain. LRQA SpeakUp allows anyone to raise concerns confidentially and anonymously in multiple languages. We encourage our people to raise ethical concerns without fear of retaliation. LRQA SpeakUp is supported by a Speak Up Policy and Procedure which outlines how to raise concerns and next steps once a concern has been raised.

We engage and educate our people to raise awareness on modern slavery and human trafficking. All new joiners complete a mandatory training module on modern slavery risks.

We are committed to implementing effective systems and controls to ensure that modern slavery and human trafficking do not take place anywhere within our supply chain (see Our future plans below). 

Governance

Accountability for human rights and modern slavery resides with our CEO. Responsibility for our supply chain day-to-day management is led by our Group Operations & Sustainable Procurement Manager, who works closely with our Head of Sustainability and our Legal, Risk and Compliance team.

We will continue to work to raise awareness of modern slavery within LRQA by reviewing and evaluating the measures and processes that we have implemented, and continue to implement, to ensure their success.

An annual review of this statement will be conducted in conjunction with other stakeholders within LRQA, including Procurement, Sustainability and the Legal, Risk and Compliance team. This statement will be updated on an annual basis and approved by members of the Board before being published.

Our future plans

• Roll out an enhanced supplier onboarding process that supports our position against modern slavery and human trafficking.
• Rationalise our supply chain to manage, monitor and govern our supply chain by implementing assessments and reporting mechanisms.
• Implement a supplier risk identification and monitoring tool to further understand the exposure of our suppliers to modern slavery and other sustainability risks, including through an adverse media screening.
• Update our responsible sourcing policy.
• Roll out a ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) questionnaire to our strategic suppliers so we can understand our supply chain better.
• Report the effectiveness of the measures we have set out here.