The Time for Kicking Tires is Over

I have to admit that I was reluctant at first to get involved in the process to develop an ISO Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility. It just seemed so unwieldy and destined to become the standard of lowest common denominator - where country representatives would water down the guidance to a point where it would become meaningless. However, I was hopeful especially by the approach taken by ISO to attempt to open the process to a wider and more inclusive audience. Instead of a bunch of technical standards experts sitting around a table and designing the standard, ISO has taken the unprecedented step of inviting multi-stakeholder groups to participate in the development process.

Normally, experts are organized in national delegations for international standards development, but for this standard ISO has created six stakeholder categories in which experts are grouped. These include experts from industry, labour, consumer, non-governmental organizations, government and 'other' - which helps ensure that the voices of these stakeholders will be heard throughout the process. Representatives from international organizations such as UN agencies (ILO, WHO and Global Compact) and others such as Consumers International, AccountAbility and GRI have been attending meetings and are able to participate directly as liaison affiliations.

Obviously with such a large and varied group there are problems of trust building but I think that the first two meetings have helped to build that trust to a point where people have moved beyond asking the question "Do we really need an international ISO standard for social responsibility?"or "Is ISO the right organization to develop the standard?" to other questions like "What could it look like?" and "How do we build it so that it's relevant to all stakeholders?". We kicked the tires at the Brazil meeting and we decided to buy some sort of transportation in Bangkok, now we have to decide if its going to be a car or a moped, what model and colour it's going to be, and how many options we're going to outfit it with (realizing that the more options we buy the more expensive it gets). Are consumers buying?

Consumers and Social Responsibility

Globally, consumers appear to be increasingly interested and concerned about social and environmental issues in addition to the more traditional concerns surrounding quality, availability of choice and price of products and service. It is within this context that ISO has decided to launch the development of a guidance standard on social responsibility.

The guidance standard will be published in 2008 as ISO 26000 and be voluntary to use. The standard will be applicable to all types of organizations, including business, NGOs, government, etc. It will provide guidance on how to operationalize social responsibility and, as such, will not be a standard for certification purposes.

There is a range of many different opinions among the various stakeholders on how the guidance standard should be operationalized. The purpose of this blog is to engage in a dialogue with consumers (particularly those in Canada) and invite their input in the development of the standard as it evolves over the next two years.

I look forward to your feedback and input!