40 Strategy and management
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ISO 26000
Responsibility’s new guiding light
By Rajesh Chhabara
How will the ISO 26000 guidance standard on social responsibility stand out from the clutter
of other standards and guidelines?
fter a nine-year process that has included five
A years of worldwide consultations and negotia-
tions, the ISO 26000 guidance standard on social
responsibility is due to be launched this year. The
final arrival has renewed the debate about the
intent, content and character of ISO 26000, and
potential implications for companies and even non-
profit organisations.
The draft ISO 26000 guidance standard has been
developed by the International Organisation for
Standardisation in consultation with stakeholders
and experts from over 90 countries and 42 interna-
tional organisations. It now needs to be approved
by the members in a five-month balloting exercise
that ends in February. The draft requires agreement
from at least 75% of the votes cast in order to be
published and launched.
But why is another social responsibility standard
needed? Hundreds of standards have proliferated
while ISO 26000 was being negotiated over the past
decade. So how is ISO 26000 different from
numerous other standards?
Paul Hohnen, an Amsterdam-based sustain-
ability consultant and an expert participant in
the ISO working group on social responsibility
since 2004, says even though there are many
standards and guidelines, there is no adequately
detailed international standard on social
responsibility. “If approved, ISO 26000 will be the
broadest and deepest articulation of a shared view
of the meaning of social responsibility ever devel-
oped,” he says. The draft guidance standard runs
to 99 pages, making it the bulkiest and most
descriptive standard on social responsibility. (See
Ethical Corporation • February 2010
42 ISO2600: a history
p42 for more analysis from Paul Hohnen on ISO “ISO should be
26000.)
Unlike other initiatives that are mainly directed
very clear about
at business organisations, ISO 26000 is intended to what ISO 26000
be applicable to all types of organisations in the is. Otherwise it
private, public and non-profit sectors irrespective of
their size or location. is going to create
more confusion”
Wide consultation
Thomas Thomas, executive director of Singapore
Sean Ansett,
Compact for CSR and a member of the chairman’s At Stake Advisors
advisory group for ISO 26000, says the guidance
standard is the result of extensive consultations with
stakeholders. This makes ISO 26000 the most widely
accepted draft standard on social responsibility – a
good reason for organisations to adopt it when
launched.
Many organisations, including small and medium
enterprises, currently do not use international social
responsibility standards or produce CSR reports as
they don’t understand what an ethical framework is.
ISO 26000 has the potential to make a substantial
difference to these organisations as it provides high
quality guidance on social responsibility.
ISO 26000 will also be the first standard to try to
define the relationship between organisational
responsibility and societal interest. “ISO 26000 basi-
cally says that society has interests that organisations
should respect,” says Dwight Justice, policy adviser
at the Brussels headquartered International Trade
Union Confederation, who has participated in the
ISO 26000 consultations from the early days.
Justice says this approach distinguishes between
the societal interests and the responsibility of an
Ethical Corporation • February 2010
organisation to take them into account. “The
guidance standard says an organisation should pay
attention to what society is saying what its needs
are, not what the organisation thinks is convenient
and consistent with its own goals to be responsible.”
The guidance standard does not assume that a
business or an organisation can define by itself what
the interests of society are, he says.
An important aspect of ISO 26000 is that, unlike
most ISO standards, it is a voluntary guidance
standard and not a management system standard.
This means that ISO 26000 is not a certifiable
standard even though the certification industry and
consultants who were hoping to make money from
selling the certification like other ISO standards had
wanted it to be certifiable.
Challenges ahead
Even though ISO 26000 is not a certification
standard, national standards organisations and
governments could potentially use the guidance
document to introduce national standards and
legislation that then become certifiable or require
compliance. In the past, governments have passed
laws inspired by various ISO standards.
Justice cautions: “Some national standards
bodies may come up with a quick checklist saying it
is based on ISO 26000 and enabling people to self-
certify. That will be somewhat misleading.”
Experts say there is also a risk of unscrupulous
organisations adopting creative ways to give an
impression in their corporate responsibility reports
that their actions conform with ISO 26000 guidance
standards.
“ISO should be very clear about what ISO 26000
is and what it is not. Otherwise it is going to create
more confusion in the marketplace,” says Sean
Ansett, managing partner at Madrid-based corpo-
rate responsibility consulting At Stake Advisors.
He says that, for example, suppliers to multina-
tional brands, which are already complaining of
standards clutter and audit fatigue, may view ISO
26000 as a silver bullet, which it is not. Brands are
still going to continue to audit and monitor their
suppliers using their codes of conduct even if the
supplier claims it follows ISO 26000.
ISO’s challenges are, however, not limited to
how the guidance standard is launched and
explained to avoid its misuse. ISO is also faced with
a growing scrutiny of the way it developed the
standard and its role in setting social standards.
ISO had structured several groups of stake-
holders for the purpose of consultations including
consumers, government, industry, labour and
NGOs. Justice points out that not all stakeholders
were adequately or evenly represented in the
consultations process, saying: “Consumers and
labour were the smallest groups even though as
constituents in society they are very important.” He
says they did not have resources to participate in this
Strategy and management 41
kind of process. “On the other hand, industry and
service providers, who are used to participating in
Draft ISO 26000
the ISO process, were able to afford to participate
guidance
and were well represented.” He says these are
standard
serious procedural concerns.
at a glance
Labour groups are also concerned about ISO
Principles of social
taking up the task of setting labour standards,
responsibility:
which they believe is the domain of the Interna-
• accountability;
tional Labour Organisation. Justice says his union
• transparency;
organisation is satisfied with the draft guidance
• ethical behaviour;
standard, but adds: “We are still not happy with the
• respect for stakeholder
ISO getting into the area of public policy. We don’t
interests;
think ISO is built for that kind of standard setting.”
• respect for the rule
He explains that there are already international
of law;
organisations established to deal with broad area of
• respect for international
social issues. “One of the things we tried to do was
norms of behaviour; and
to make sure that the ISO’s social standards did not
• respect for human rights.
usurp or replace the standards set by the ILO.”
ISO 26000 also faces potential opposition from a
Core subjects covered:
group of countries, led mainly by China, that are not
• human rights;
comfortable with the use of language lifted from
• labour practices;
international agreements on human rights, labour
• environment;
and environment. They fear such language will
• fair operating practices;
make ISO 26000 a benchmark for minimum stan-
• consumer issues; and
dards of organisational responsibility.
• community involvement
Since some of their own national laws do not
and development.
measure up to international conventions and decla-
rations, a stricter ISO 26000 can potentially create Source: ISO Draft
pressure for conformity with higher standards and International Standard
wider accountability. 26000. For full draft,
China, which unsuccessfully tried to block the visit www.iso.org/wgsr
text from going to the draft international standard
stage last year, is said to be using diplomatic efforts
to gather support to reject the draft in the balloting
process. “If ISO 26000 does not become a standard, it
will be a very large set-back to CSR,” Justice warns.
Political opposition
One sustainability analyst, preferring to remain
anonymous, says: “Political opposition to a very demo- A stricter
cratic and conventional process within the ISO term
can backfire. It can damage the opposing country’s
ISO 26000 can
national profile and actually amplify the importance of create pressure
the standard that they just wished would go away.” for conformity
Politics apart, stakeholders will closely watch
how ISO 26000 makes an impact in the market clut- with higher
tered with a wide variety of standards. The draft standards
guidance standard says: “The beginner may find it
useful to read and apply this international standard and wider
from start to finish as a primer on social responsi- accountability
bility, while the experienced user may wish to use it
to improve existing practices and to further inte-
grate social responsibility into the organisation.”
Another ISO communication states that ISO
26000 will help organisations to move from good
intentions to good actions.
Sean Ansett says that, for companies, “it is not the
only tool in their toolbox”. In other words, they
should use ISO 26000 as a powerful additional tool to
improve their social responsibility programmes. ■