On November 1st, 2010 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published their latest guidance document entitled ISO 26000 – 2010, Guidance on Social Responsibility. The guidance standard “provides harmonized, globally relevant guidance for private and public sector organizations of all types based on international consensus among expert representatives…[to] encourage the implementation of best practice in social responsibility worldwide.” This guidance document has been in the works for several years and represents the efforts of 400 social responsibility experts worldwide from 99 countries, of which 69 were from developing nations. The reason the standard is not called “corporate” social responsibility, one of the most popularized terms with sustainability practitioners, is because it was meant to be inclusive of government and non-government institutions.
There are a lot of different frameworks and principles for certain aspects of social responsibility (i.e. Reporting [GRI] [CDP], AA1000, ILO Labour Standards, UN Global Compact, Fair Trade), but no overarching guidance for all types of organizations (large, small, public, and private) in all parts of the world (developing and developed). This was the impetus for creating the standard. What differentiates this guidance document from others is that it is a global consensus of what social responsibility means and what core subjects need to be addressed in order to implement it.
The document provides guidance on the following core areas:
- Concepts, terms and definitions related to social responsibility;
- Background, trends and characteristics of social responsibility;
- Principles and practices relating to social responsibility;
- Core subjects and issues related to social responsibility, specifically, human rights, labour practices, the environment, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and community involvement and development;
- Integrating, implementing and promoting socially responsible behaviour throughout the organization and, through its policies and practices, within its sphere of influence;
- Identifying and engaging with stakeholders; and,
- Communicating commitments, performance and other information related to social responsibility.
ISO 26000 only provides voluntary guidance on social responsibility principles, practices, and strategy. It is not a standard—such as ISO 9001 or ISO 14001—in which there is requirements and can therefore not be used as the basis for certification, measurement or a conformity assessment. It is also important to note that voluntary commitments can give rise to real obligations and therefore, these should not be made until your organization fully understands how they are implemented and what liabilities, risks, and opportunities exist. Some critiques of the ISO 26000 guidance standard say that it is too high level and therefore difficult to implement and that social responsibility may be too complex to be communicated in a guidance document.
It is still too soon to tell if ISO 26000 will become the dominating guidance standard on social responsibility and how much work—with the associated costs—it would take to implement it. However, it is now a part of the sustainability lexicon and it must be investigated further. The Delphi Group will monitor public and private responses to this guidance standard and keep our readers up-to-date on any developments.
By Steven Pacifico, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
