Social responsibility has become a major concern nowadays, as the pressure from the public for organizations to behave in a more socially responsible manner and adhere to social standards has significantly increased. Organizations around the world need to take the necessary measures toward enhancing their social performance and making the world a better place.
By improving your performance through the adoption of ISO , you will demonstrate to the audience that you are contributing towards a sustainable development. By becoming ISO certified, you will not only prove that you are effectively delivering products and services to stakeholders and public; you will also demonstrate that you care about the environment and its sustainability. Moreover, you will enhance the reputation of the company by attracting new customers and employees, who wish to maintain a healthy ecosystem.
ISO certification is becoming fundamental to the short and long-term success of any organization. Having gained worldwide recognition for our services and integrity, our global network of experts will guide you through all the necessary steps in effectively adopting the standard according to your business culture. Check the training courses below and find the one that suits you best. Organizations, including businesses, do not exist in a vacuum.
Every organization is embedded in a wider web of societal, political, and environmental systems, that spans from smaller local networks to expansive and complex global systems.
This statement recognizes the link between an organization and the social, environmental and economic wellbeing of the communities in which they operate. It can also be an insight into their general performance. ISO is a set of guiding principles for businesses and organizations to use to steer them in a more socially responsible direction. In order to better contribute to the health and welfare of their supporting societies and environments, businesses must enforce principles of ethical and transparent behaviour.
ISO is a standard that outlines a set of guiding principles for corporate social responsibility. It is important to note that ISO is intended to provide guidance, as opposed to specific requirements.
ISO is voluntary and as such can not be certified to. Rather, its purpose is to help organizations to understand and clearly define what social responsibility means to them, and offer guidelines to assist with the deployment of best practice principles and actionable solutions. By encouraging businesses and organizations to take social responsibility seriously, ISO helps contribute to global sustainable development. ISO is the most recent and as of the writing of this article, only ISO standard relating directly to guidelines for corporate social responsibility.
In this article I will be using these terms interchangeably. The suffix refers to the year the version of the standard was launched. ISO was the result of five years of discussions and negotiations between many different stakeholders across the globe. Development of ISO involved actors and representatives from various industries, governments, NGOs, consumer groups and worker organizations from around the world, and as such it represents a truly international consensus.
Back in , a whole bunch of stakeholders invested in defining standards for corporate social responsibility got together to try and work on a consensus. Approximately five hundred different organizations and individuals participated in the process, with additional committee meetings and consultations via email during those initial five years.
The final standards defined in ISO was the result of this long process of deliberation and negotiation. What constitutes ethical and socially responsible behaviour by corporations and organizations is highly debated, and the question of how viable standardized solutions like ISO are to these kinds of complex problems is ongoing.
However, what ISO attempts to do is outline a clear middle-path between dense, strict legislation and open, un-regulated or self-regulated corporate freedom. ISO attempts to promote respect and responsibility by providing reference points in the form of documented standards. This way, organizations have the freedom to work in a way that does not restrict their ability to function on a business level, while still calling them to hold accountability for their own social and environmental actions.
It is important because it offers an actionable framework for social responsibility that is appealing to corporations because of its flexibility. Sometimes abbreviated to CSR, corporate social responsibility is a broad concept that involves pretty much anything a company does to uphold principles of sustainable development. This responsibility refers to the concerns of society in general, as well as the concerns of individual organizations. Of course, these concerns are constantly changing, and the framework of ISO as a set of guidelines, rather than a rigid set of requirements reflects this.
Sustainable development is simply the idea that the actions of a corporation should not be destructive. ISO , while focusing mainly on the societal aspect, nonetheless incorporates elements of each core pillar of sustainable development. In this capacity, ISO as a standard incorporates core principles of sustainable development. This is like a brief but comprehensive overview of the standard, and includes limitations and exclusions. Think of it like an introduction that provides important context.
Concepts important for understanding corporate social responsibility and the guidelines defined in this standard are defined here. Essentially an overview of the concept of social responsibility, including what it means and how it applies to organizations. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Report bugs here. Please share your general feedback. You can join in the discussion by joining the community or logging in here. You can also find out more about Emerald Engage.
Visit emeraldpublishing. ISO provides guidance to all types of organizations, regardless of their size or location, on:. ISO is intended to assist organizations in contributing to sustainable development. It is intended to encourage them to go beyond legal compliance, recognizing that compliance with law is a fundamental duty of any organization and an essential part of their social responsibility.
It is intended to promote common understanding in the field of social responsibility, and to complement other instruments and initiatives for social responsibility, not to replace them. In applying ISO , it is advisable that an organization take into consideration societal, environmental, legal, cultural, political and organizational diversity, as well as differences in economic conditions, while being consistent with international norms of behaviour.
ISO is not a management system standard. It is not intended or appropriate for certification purposes or regulatory or contractual use. Any offer to certify, or claims to be certified, to ISO would be a misrepresentation of the intent and purpose and a misuse of ISO As ISO does not contain requirements, any such certification would not be a demonstration of conformity with ISO ISO is intended to provide organizations with guidance concerning social responsibility and can be used as part of public policy activities.
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