Paul Hohnen Sustainability Strategies

This article was published in Ethical Corporation on March 21, 2005.

Setting the standard in Salvador

Over the next three years, experts from around the world will engage in the detailed and daunting task of defining what it means to be ‘socially-responsible', reports Paul Hohnen from the recent ISO meeting in Brazil

The occasional revolution aside, change occurs mostly in a series of incremental and undramatic steps as part of a longer term process.

Seen in this context, a recent low-key ISO meeting in Brazil will probably go down in history as marking the beginning of a new chapter in the story of corporate social responsibility. Given, however, the complexity of the issues involved, and the diverse range of interests engaged, it will doubtless be a chapter long and hard in the writing.

ISO is, of course, the acronym for the International Organisation for Standardisation.

Appropriately enough, the word ‘isos' in the ancient Greek language means ‘equal'. ISO is most widely known for developing standards for such technical matters as screw thread size, and its (to many observers) surprise decision last year to enter the field of social responsibility should be seen as highly significant.

At a superficial level, the first meeting of the ISO Social Responsibility Working Group (SR WG) resembled any other large international conference. Some 300 participants descended on Salvador , Brazil , between 7 and 11 March, engaged in intensive discussions and left, having decided little more than the broad structure and objectives of their future work plan.

Judging from the relative lack of subsequent international media coverage, it was not considered much more than just another ISO meeting.

A meaningful meeting

Three factors, however, suggest that the ISO's Social Responsibility Working Group may have special relevance.

First, it forms part of ISO's Strategic Plan 2005-2010, entitled ‘Standards for a sustainable world'.

The launch of the Social Responsibility Working Group by ISO signals the widening recognition that the business of how organisations respond to social, environmental and ethical issues is both a genuine need and a growth market.

Second, the Working Group's goal – to develop an ISO guidance standard on ‘social responsibility' by 2008 – reflects an assessment that there is a global appetite for a more uniform approach to understanding and applying ‘social responsibility'.

It is intended that the proposed standard will be available for use by all organisations, including business.

Third, the composition of the WG reflects a new, more inclusive approach by ISO. In addition to the usual delegates from government, business, standards and consumer associations, labour and consultants, there were representatives from the UN Global Compact, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and environmental and other NGOs.

Convened jointly by the Brazilian and Swedish Standards organisations, who co-chair the process, the Working Group suggests a clear strategy for developing a credible and practical tool for embedding the concept of social responsibility into the management practices of business and non-profit organisations worldwide.

Agreed features of the proposed standard – to be known as ISO 26000 - include that it will be: for ‘guidance' only; for voluntary use; not suitable for certification; and relevant for all organisations.

The meaning of responsibility

But this is where the problems begin. With the structure of the various task groups agreed, participants now have to seek consensus on what should go into the proposed standard. Over the next three years, experts from around the world will engage in the detailed and daunting task of defining what it means to be ‘socially-responsible', whether one is in Chile or China . This raises some potential hurdles to be overcome.

Your standard or mine? ISO is entering a field where there are already several hundred different principles, codes of conduct, norms and standards that relate to the social responsibilities of business.

Many of these are industry-defined and widely used. Most have special regional or sectoral attributes that make them attractive to one set of users or another. It remains to be seen how ISO will go about recognising the relevant SR tools, or identifying common elements or themes.

Key challenges here include how it addresses and interprets intergovernmental agreements such as the ILO Core Conventions, and non-standard tools such as the UN Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) that have seen relatively rapid market uptake.

As with all multi-stakeholder processes, the ISO SR WG contains groups with widely different agendas.

Trade access. Within the business community, these include mainly Southern commodities exporters who are looking to secure recognition in Northern markets that their products conform to internationally-recognised standards, and thereby avoid problems with consumers concerned with environmental or social production issues.

For their part, consumer organisations share the desire to see standards raised. It is hard to see, however, how a non-certifiable standard can be useful in this regard. This raises the spectre, in the period beyond 2008, that the issue of certification will be re-visited. Government trade experts and development specialists also seem set to take an ever closer interest in the implications of the standard for advancing the UN Millennium Development Goals and potential wider impacts on trade and development.

Sustainable business or sustainable world? Although most of the major international human rights and environmental groups were not present, many smaller NGOs present at the first meeting were effective advocates of sustainable development. For these groups, the ISO Working Group represents an opportunity to raise awareness of sustainable development issues.

As negotiations proceed, they will doubtless be endeavouring to embed existing international laws and declarations on sustainable development into the management practices of all organisations. Business representatives can be expected to be divided on this point.

Some business leaders will have little to fear from an ISO standard, having already put various practices in place to define sensitive issues and engage pro-actively with stakeholders. Others may have more concerns about new and potentially open-ended expectations being placed on the business community.

‘One-Size' Guidance in a Multi-Size World. Perhaps the greatest challenge for the WG will be how to tackle the evolving and as yet undefined concept of ‘social responsibility' and fit this within an ISO framework.

Preliminary discussion has already recognised that there are at least two sorts of principles relevant to the social responsibility debate. These include substantive principles (such as those contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and process principles (such as whether or not to use multi-stakeholder tools to assess stakeholders' expectations).

While many businesses (including first-time users) would welcome a clear and simple framework for understanding what is meant by social responsibility, some experts have cautioned that the concept needs flexibility to reflect the different size, culture, sector and experience of each organisation.

Expect more

The course of negotiations over the next few years is set to be complex and the outcomes are far from certain, either in terms of content or delivery date.

Other processes, including the UN Commission on Human Rights, will also be working on aspects of the social responsibility agenda in parallel.

What is clear, however, is that a major new process is now underway that is bringing together key sectors and actors with widely varying agendas, experiences and ideas.

Certain to generate a great deal of heat, it can also be expected to generate welcome fresh light on the challenge of how humankind can progressively improve the positive impacts of all organisations, while reducing their negative impacts.

A former Australian diplomat, Paul Hohnen is a consultant on sustainable development and CSR policy issues.
paul @ hohnen.net
www.hohnen.net