From The International Herald Tribune
Can social conscience be turned into a formula? The International Standards Organization, thinks so, and is working on a checklist for companies that want to measure and demonstrate their adherence to virtue.
Sometime in 2008, the Geneva-based organization hopes to issue ISO26000, guidelines for social responsibility.
The guidelines will be the fruit of a broad consultation involving business, governments and activist organizations such as the human rights group Amnesty International, the environmental activist group Greenpeace and the anti-corruption campaigner Transparency International, said the ISO's secretary-general, Alan Bryden.
Social responsibility is a stretch from the basic ISO business of agreeing and publishing technical norms for industrial processes and products - when work on the guidelines started in 2004 about 80 percent of the people involved had never taken part in an ISO meeting, Bryden said.
But over the past 20 years, the ISO, an independent, nongovernment federation of national standards bodies, has been moving steadily into the higher- profile business of setting standards for management, starting in 1987 with the ISO9000 series on quality management. With its ISO14000 series on environmental management systems, introduced about 10 years ago, the organization stepped squarely into a public interest arena that encompasses such hot-button issues as the environmental management practices and auditing of the nuclear power industry.
Its latest offering, published this month, is IS014064, which sets measuring, reporting and verification standards for greenhouse gas emission management systems - to be followed next year by ISO14065 setting standards for greenhouse gas auditing agencies.
Standards are not regulations. They are products that the ISO sells for a living. Companies are not obliged to adopt them, and if they ignore or breach them they risk no official punishment. Issuing an environmental management system standard, such as the greenhouse gas standard, or a social responsibility standard, has no immediate impact on the environment, or corporate behavior, ISO officials concede.
Still, for companies that want to improve their efficiency, broaden their market and reduce litigation risks, standards are a valuable enabling tool, Bryden said. And it is not clear that regulation, which requires expensive policing and more expensive prosecution, is any more effective.
Sometime in 2008, the Geneva-based organization hopes to issue ISO26000, guidelines for social responsibility.
The guidelines will be the fruit of a broad consultation involving business, governments and activist organizations such as the human rights group Amnesty International, the environmental activist group Greenpeace and the anti-corruption campaigner Transparency International, said the ISO's secretary-general, Alan Bryden.
Social responsibility is a stretch from the basic ISO business of agreeing and publishing technical norms for industrial processes and products - when work on the guidelines started in 2004 about 80 percent of the people involved had never taken part in an ISO meeting, Bryden said.
But over the past 20 years, the ISO, an independent, nongovernment federation of national standards bodies, has been moving steadily into the higher- profile business of setting standards for management, starting in 1987 with the ISO9000 series on quality management. With its ISO14000 series on environmental management systems, introduced about 10 years ago, the organization stepped squarely into a public interest arena that encompasses such hot-button issues as the environmental management practices and auditing of the nuclear power industry.
Its latest offering, published this month, is IS014064, which sets measuring, reporting and verification standards for greenhouse gas emission management systems - to be followed next year by ISO14065 setting standards for greenhouse gas auditing agencies.
Standards are not regulations. They are products that the ISO sells for a living. Companies are not obliged to adopt them, and if they ignore or breach them they risk no official punishment. Issuing an environmental management system standard, such as the greenhouse gas standard, or a social responsibility standard, has no immediate impact on the environment, or corporate behavior, ISO officials concede.
Still, for companies that want to improve their efficiency, broaden their market and reduce litigation risks, standards are a valuable enabling tool, Bryden said. And it is not clear that regulation, which requires expensive policing and more expensive prosecution, is any more effective.
It's interesting to note that the article represents yet another case of a journalist writing a piece without being understanding the subject matter; the writer refers to the "International Standards Organiztion" and uses the definite article with "ISO," indicating a misbegotten belief that the latter is an acronym for the former.