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Is the ISO journey nearing its end?
- Paul Hohnen, 12 January 2010
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Opinion:
ISO 26000’s long and winding road
Paul Hohnen says that a clear passage for the long awaited ISO 26000 guidance standard is far from certain
It has progressed, in the ISO jargon, from a “working draft”, to a “committee draft” and now to a “draft international standard”. The proposed standard is scheduled to be finalised at the eighth meeting of the working group charged with its development, to be held in Copenhagen this May. It will then be put to a vote by the national standards organisations that make up ISO’s membership.
As things look now, its passage to final approval is far from being a given.
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Comments:
Putting SR on the agenda - Ruth Brannvall, 14 Jan 2010
Very good points made in the article. Incomplete as it may be, we need to recognise different organisation and different markets will benefit more or less.
In some (western) countries the broad scope of countries social responsibility is rewarded in many different ways through tax relief, value growth, customer preferences etc. Other countries, like in Scandinavia, may still only recognise the importance of some part of the ISO 26000 such as human rights and environmental issues. The standard is in this context a great tool to put things on the public agenda, the debate that natural follows a standardisation effort is a part of driving the process for making all sorts of organisations aware of the expectations from different stake holders worldwide.
This is where I expect the merits of the ISO 26000.
Remember, we had similar debates about the necessesity to make organisations reponsible for its impact on the environement, and thus the implementation of ISO 14000, once upon a time.
Yours Sincerely,
Ruth Brannvall
Director and founder
Njord Management Consulting Ltd
Slow progress on implementation of ISO 26000 - Kishore Kavadia, 22 Jan 2010
The subject of Corporate Social Responsibility has different connotation under Indian (and many other Developing Countries) concept- development of community around manufacturing/ business area. This is of course without losing focus of conern and responsibility of immeditate Stakeholders like employees and related environment etc. Govt. of India is leading the World in coming out with concept of CSR Credits (on lines of CERs for CDM Projects under Kyoto Protocol) and therefore initiative towards ISO 26000 have great significance and bearing under Indian scenario and earlier a judicious decision is taken will help India in and many other Developing countries in a large way.
Regards
Kishore Kavadia
Advisor, Sustainability
Ambuja Cements Limited, Mumbai, India
Certification contention - Aisha Mussakhan, 17 Feb 2010
It is interesting to observe the process in general. However, it is true, that the most controversial issue is remaining to be the excluding third party certification. About half of the experts strongly preferred including it into the Standard (i.e.ISO 26000), while ILO and some other NGOs were against it. Although I am not an expert in this field, and just a student of knowledge, I take a risk to assume, that it is like the two sides of the coin. From one side, many organizations will view the certification as a formal issue, to attract investors. This might cause light-minded attitude towards the Standard based on conceited and ambitious plans. It might even result corrupted activities within the certification bodies. Besides, why the organization will need third party certification if it could simply work on its integration into its internal social policy without any struggle to get the certification?! However, having a formal certification will strongly better the image of a company as a socially responsible private entity.
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