Supplier performance

Assessing our partners’ compliance

We use a third-party platform from EcoVadis to assess our suppliers' corporate responsibility performance. Since 2013, we have invited 405 key suppliers to the platform. EcoVadis’ assessment approach focuses on four key areas: environment, fair labor practices, ethics/fair business practices, and supply chain.

EcoVadis combines supplier questionnaire input with its own research based on public sources to benchmark suppliers on their corporate responsibility performance. When weaknesses are identified, Verizon works with the supplier to create a corrective action plan and improve their current program. Both Verizon and the supplier benefit from this program.

Verizon has committed that 75 percent of suppliers assessed will be compliant with the overall EcoVadis assessment, consisting of the four combined categories, by 2020.

Verizon is a member of the Joint Audit Cooperation (JAC), an association of telecom operators that collaboratively audits suppliers common to JAC members and looks for opportunities to improve CSR across the Information and Communications Technology industry. JAC bolsters Verizon’s CSR program by going beyond what suppliers pledge in their policies, to investigate their actual performance on-site. JAC has completed 366 on-site supplier audits since its inception in 2010, and 89 of them were completed in 2017.

Verizon joined the group in 2013 as the first U.S.-based member and serves on both the Leadership Assembly and Operational Board. Other members include AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Proximus, KPN, Rogers, Swisscom, Telefónica, Telenor, TeliaSonera, and Vodafone.

Verizon wants to do business with companies that prioritize health, safety and environmental stewardship. To that end, we partner with the third-party assessment firm, Avetta, to screen our relevant contractors’ safety and environmental performance. Avetta reviews injury rates, environmental health and safety violations, fines, corrective actions and other metrics, and compares the data to industry benchmarks. When weaknesses are identified, Verizon works with contractors to review root causes and corrective action plans. More than 2,000 contractors have registered in Avetta.