Companies increasingly prioritise their sourcing of ingredients to respect people and biodiversity. In our field verification programme, UEBT provides practical and comprehensive approaches to assessing supply chain practices against the requirements in the UEBT standard.

Assurance based on an internationally recognised standard

UEBT assesses companies' supply chains using the UEBT standard that is internationally recognised and covers important social, environmental and economic issues related to the sourcing of ingredients from biodiversity. Assessments pinpoint strengths and weaknesses for continuous improvement, and can provide an independent check for a company as well as documentation (if desired) that attests to a level of performance.

What is assessed?

The focus of the assessment is on the practices carried out in the sourcing areas – including those implemented by farmers, farm workers, wild collectors and local suppliers.

The verification programme

The verification programme is different from our UEBT certification programmes. Verification uses a gap-spotting approach, and has learning and improvement at its core.

UEBT verification always looks at the full set of requirements - companies may find they meet the ‘responsible sourcing’ requirements (that are crucial for most due diligence or risk management programmes) alone, or companies may find they meet the ‘ethical sourcing’ requirements which are the responsible sourcing requirements plus additional practices that strive for positive impact.

UEBT experts conduct the verification and provide recommendations for improvement.

If a company asks for an attestation of the level of performance against the requirements, UEBT can attest to these levels and issue an official document stating this. Frequency of verifications varies from once every year to once in three years.

Verifying wild-harvested botanicals

SAI Platform and UEBT are partnering to accelerate the responsible sourcing of wild-harvested botanicals. Leveraging the expertise and strengths of both organisations, the partnership provides a unified approach to sustainable and ethical sourcing of wild-harvested botanicals. Using the UEBT standard that has more than 100 requirements applicable to wild-harvested botanicals, companies can have supply chains verified by UEBT’s expert network of wild harvesting assessors and in-house experts.

From due diligence to positive impact

Companies can choose the approach to meeting UEBT requirements as best fits their strategy. UEBT looks at the comprehensive set of requirements, but companies can meet them one step at a time:

Responsible sourcing requirements – these are requirements in the UEBT standard that are for mitigating negative impact, meeting due diligence programmes, or for managing risk.
Ethical sourcing requirements – these include all of the responsible sourcing requirements plus requirements that strive for positive impact for people and biodiversity.

Claims

Business-to-business claims or internal communications are possible in the verification programme, but there are no labelling opportunities. Claims are based on the level of requirements that have been met. The following text claims may be possible:

“UEBT verified ethically sourced [name of ingredient]”
“UEBT verified responsibly sourced [name of ingredient]”

Learn more about making UEBT claims.

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Learn more:

Watch a 2 minute overview of the UEBT field verification programme