ISO Standards related to Corporate Responsibility

The International Organisation for Standardisation indexes and defines international standards for a wide range of areas, from Chinese medicine to the different forms of screw threads. The value of categorization is that labelling and naming has international standing and cross-boundary confusion is thus mitigated (these standards also often become legal definitions). Many of the standards can act as a certification to ensure that business practice is up-to a certain standard (i.e. ISO14001 for Environmental Management Systems).

The ISO area most relevant to CR is the environmental standardizations, which are well established. On top of these there are financial standardizations that should also be borne in mind as well as the Social standardizations, which are currently under development.
The detailed documents outlining the content of the standards are available for purchase at the ISO website.

Here are some of the most relevant standardizations:

Environmental:

• ISO14001 Environmental Management Systems: Requirements and guidance for use
• ISO14004 Environmental management systems: General guidance on principles, systems and support techniques
• ISO14015 Environmental auditing and related investigations
• ISO14020-25 Environmental Labelling and declarations
• ISO14031 Environmental performance evaluation
• ISO14033 Quantitative Environmental information
• ISO14040-49 Lifecycle assessment
• ISO14050 Environmental vocabulary and definitions
• ISO14062 Improvements to environmental impact goals
• ISO14063 Environmental Communication guidelinesISO14064-69 GHG Management

Social:

• ISO26000 Guidelines for social responsibility- a broad reaching but voluntary framework that is to be launched in 2010.

Other:

• ISO31000 Risk Management

(Beyond these, there are industry specific standardizations, which may apply, but are very broad ranging ie sector specific health & safety etc)