Introduction

In January 2005 a Working Group was established within ISO, to develop an International Standard providing guidelines for social responsibility (SR). The objective is to produce a guidance document, written in plain language that is understandable and usable by non-specialists, and not a specification document intended for third party certification.

The work is intended to add value to, and not replace, existing inter-governmental agreements with relevance to social responsibility, such as the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and those adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO). The standard should be usable for organizations of all sizes, in countries at every stage of development.

ISO is taking action to ensure that the standard will benefit from broad input by all those with a serious interest in social responsibility. This is being achieved by a balanced representation in the working group, of six designated stakeholder categories: industry, government, labour, consumers, nongovernmental organizations and others, in addition to geographical and gender-based balance.

The designation of the standard is ISO 26000 and the target date for publication is year 2010.