UL Functional Safety Listing Mark

UL (Underwriters Laboratories) is a safety consulting and certification company.  It is based in the United States, and has offices in 46 countries.  UL is one of several companies approved to perform safety testing by the US federal agency Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Traditional UL listing marks were for fire and electric shock safety certification for a great variety of products.  Over the past few years, functional safety standards have been growing throughout North America and Europe.  This has led to UL creating its UL Functional Safety Listing Mark.

UL Functional Safety Listing Mark example

The UL Functional Safety Listing Mark examines the effectiveness of the entire safety-related system of a product.  It includes evaluations of:

• Software
• Hardware
• Environmental factors (e.g., electromagnetic compatibility, EMC)
• Safety lifecycle management processes

Traditional UL Listing Marks were concerned with just the hardware safety, and environmental factors to some extent.

UL’s intention is that the UL Functional Safety Listing Mark will replace the old listing mark.  They won’t be used in tandem.  But the old listing mark isn’t going away.  The choice between the two is up to the product manufacturer seeking the safety listing.  Reasons for adopting the new functional safety mark may be for market acceptance or customer requirements, for example.