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ISO 26000: the business guide to the new standard on social responsibility

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility emerged late in the 1990s and gained momentum as the key business theory of the twenty-first century. In November 2010, the International Standards Organisation released the first guidance document on corporate responsibility. This first guidance, which integrates social, environmental and governance concepts into one framework, represents significant progress in helping companies to develop policies and strategies to address these critical themes in their business operations. So what can impact assessment professionals take from corporate responsibility and the guidance document? The timely release of ISO26000: the business guide to the new standard on social responsibility may offer some answers. Early references to corporate social responsibility were framed as the triple bottom line – social, environmental and financial – but this concept still only operated at the periphery of the core business model. Companies and organizations continued to view their operations as removed from a broader impact on society and the environment: Milton Friedman’s famous article was their response – ‘The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits’ (New York Times Magazine, 13 September 1970). However, this view has changed considerably, and now businesses are on the path to integrating corporate responsibility into their business models. ISO26000: the business guide to the new standard on social responsibility was released late in 2011. The publication is based on research that reveals that many organizations are still grappling with corporate responsibility as a concept, which limits their ability to develop policies and strategies to integrate into the business operation. The ISO 26000 SR (CSR) guidelines were several years in the making, beginning in 2005. They were released for public use in November 2010. ISO 26000 does not use the terminology CSR (corporate social responsibility) for its guidelines but rather SR (social responsibility) ‘ISO took the decision that its guidance should be appropriate for all organizations not merely for big business as the “C” in CSR implies’ (p. 21). A vast array of stakeholder groups drawn from almost 100 countries debated and produced these guidelines. Many suggest that ISO 26000 is likely to be a very authoritative guideline for designing and implementing CSR. Among the main objectives of the guidelines are to support organizations in defining their social responsibilities and acting in accordance with these responsibilities. Another objective is to increase the credibility of companies’ SR claims. According to Lars and Tino, ‘Many organizations are urgently in need of an overview, structure and roadmap on how to engage with CSR in practice . . . Only an organization that is aware of its societal impacts, has true and deep concern for these impacts, and consciously acts according to these concerns both at a strategic and operational level can hope of integrating the triple bottom line (p. 163).’ The two authors highlight that every organization has its own individual organization-specific CSR profile. They stress the need for every organization to interpret CSR in a way that fits its activities, impacts,and spheres of influence. Such an approach to CSR, they point out, results in multiple benefits, including profits for the organization and profits for the community. Specifying that CSR has great societal relevance, the two authors say, ‘Business, governments and NGOs have a central role in contributing to the realization of sustainable development’ (p. 61). ISO 26000 is different from the other initiatives of the ISO in that, unlike the earlier ISOs, like GRI and the AA 1000 Series, it does not provide for certification. The guideline very clearly states that it is not meant for certification or contractual use. ISO 26000 is a guidance standard, which can be used by organizations on a voluntary basis. According to the author, ‘ISO 26000 wants to be useful for all types of organizations, irrespective of their size, sector, and geographic location and irrespective of their stage of SR implementation’. Arguably the most important aspect of the SR principle within IS