What are the ISO 26000 standards for corporate social re­spons­ib­il­ity?

ISO 26000 was developed as an in­ter­na­tion­al standard that provides companies with concrete guidelines for de­vel­op­ment across a variety of cat­egor­ies in the area of social re­spons­ib­il­ity. We’ll explain the main contents of the standard.

For a long time, corporate social re­spons­ib­il­ity (CSR) was a term that many companies included in annual reports. In the meantime, more and more over­arch­ing standards on a European level and new reg­u­lat­ory re­quire­ments for companies with regard to practices at home and abroad have been in­tro­duced.

The focus is no longer just on more sus­tain­able business practices. Areas such as diversity and inclusion and lead­er­ship are also gaining in sig­ni­fic­ance. En­vir­on­ment­al Social Gov­ernance (ESG), has also become a very important standard for sus­tain­able in­vest­ment. These are all standards by which companies are also measured in the public eye. What does the ISO 26000 standard do in this context?

What does the ISO 26000 standard regulate?

The DIN standard of­fi­cially named DIN ISO 26000 is an in­ter­na­tion­ally co­ordin­ated set of guidelines defining the social re­spons­ib­il­ity of a company on the basis of specified standards and is intended to serve as a guide. The standard is divided into seven sub­cat­egor­ies, for example, ‘Or­gan­isa­tion­al Gov­ernance’, ‘En­vir­on­ment’ or ‘Human Rights’.

The standard gives an overview of the re­spect­ive category and describes actions companies can take in this area. The en­vir­on­ment category, for example, includes actions relating to reducing en­vir­on­ment­al pollution and using natural resources.

What is the objective of the ISO 26000 standard?

Es­tab­lished in 2010, the standard known as ISO 26000 is intended as a guide that provides an overview of various social re­spons­ib­il­ity prin­ciples and practices. It pursues the goal that companies con­tinu­ously align their activ­it­ies with con­sid­er­a­tion to their social re­spons­ib­il­ity. The standard is intended to support companies and or­gan­isa­tions in im­ple­ment­ing concrete measures for sus­tain­able, social de­vel­op­ment. Nearly 100 countries have adopted ISO 26000 as a National Standard.

The standard shows examples of social re­spons­ib­il­ity that companies can use as a guide, re­gard­less of their size, industry or location.

ISO 26000 is not a cer­ti­fic­a­tion, as is the case with other ISO standards. More than 500 experts from various fields, such as NGOs, trade unions, gov­ern­ment rep­res­ent­at­ives and consumer groups worldwide, were involved in drawing up the standard.

What does the ISO 26000 standard include?

The standard is divided into different cat­egor­ies, all of which have an impact on a company’s social re­spons­ib­il­ity. The breakdown is as follows:

• Or­gan­isa­tion­al gov­ernance
• En­vir­on­ment
• Human rights
• Labour practices
• Fair operating practices
• Consumer issues
• Community in­volve­ment and de­vel­op­ment

Each topic is in­tro­duced within the standard and an overview is given of the action areas within the re­spect­ive topic. Af­ter­wards, the action areas are addressed in­di­vidu­ally, for example ‘anti-cor­rup­tion’ and ‘fair com­pet­i­tion’ under the topic ‘fair operating practices’. This means the issue of com­pli­ance is also taken into account.

One part that the standard par­tic­u­larly em­phas­ises are core re­com­mend­a­tions. These are intended to make it clear straight away which criteria are most important in an action area and what companies should focus on in par­tic­u­lar. An example of one of these core re­com­mend­a­tions is the ‘use of recycled materials’.

The action areas include detailed reg­u­la­tions that have a direct influence on the topic in question. These include, for example, laws that affect the in­di­vidu­al points in an action area. In addition, ISO 26000 lists further standards that specify the re­spect­ive action areas. These standards il­lu­min­ate partial aspects in detail and sometimes also enable companies to obtain cer­ti­fic­a­tion in a specific aspect. These include, for example, ISO 45001 for oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety or ISO 14001 for the de­vel­op­ment and expansion of an en­vir­on­ment­al man­age­ment system.

Moreover, the standard lists common man­age­ment and audit systems with which companies can determine and change their in­di­vidu­al status in an action area. In addition to mech­an­isms that con­trib­ute to the man­age­ment and control of social re­spons­ib­il­ity, it also covers value ori­ent­a­tion, thought patterns and be­ha­viours.

This enables companies to target the areas of action where there’s an acute need and to integrate measures and processes step by step into their corporate man­age­ment.

Summary of ISO 26000

In practice, companies often use a com­bin­a­tion of different cer­ti­fic­a­tions in the area of corporate re­spons­ib­il­ity to make their social com­mit­ment visible and to determine it according to defined standards. This is where the ISO 26000 standard comes in. Although it does not enable cer­ti­fic­a­tion, it’s in­creas­ingly used by companies as an important found­a­tion, for example, in corporate social re­spons­ib­il­ity (CSR) reports.

ISO 26000 provides companies that want to use an in­ter­na­tion­ally re­cog­nised standard for their social efforts and sus­tain­ab­il­ity activ­it­ies with a guide that covers the essential aspects of corporate social re­spons­ib­il­ity.