UPDATES BY ISSUE AREA

- ISO Assesses Whether to Undertake Standardization on Fair Trade

- ISO 26000 Social Responsibility Standard Update
-- Overview of the Drafting Process
-- Progress on the Contents of the Standard
-- Key Topics and Issues
-- Progress on Working Group Procedures and Operations

- New Activities in the ISO's Committee on Environmental Management
-- Proposals to Develop New Standards on Eco-efficiency and Desert Management
-- Revision of the TC 207 Strategic Plan
-- NGO-CAG Task Force Submits to TC 207 Its First Deliverables to Improve Balanced Participation
-- Proposal to Create a new ISO/TC 207 Subcommittee on Climate Change

- Miscellaneous News
-- European Public Interest Groups Release a Position Statement on the Future of EMS-Based Environmental Policy
-- The European Parliament Passes a Resolution to Strengthen CSR Policy
-- UN Report on Mapping International Standards in Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights
-- Roundtable Discusses a Potential Certification Program for Freshwater Ecosystem Management

ISO Assesses Whether to Undertake Standardization on Fair Trade

ISO's Consumer Policy Committee (COPOLCO) adopted a resolution at its 2006 plenary inviting "Consumers International [CI] to develop a proposal for new technical work in fair trade, including certification, for consideration at the next meeting of COPOLCO in 2007." As a first step to evaluating the feasibility and desirability of such a standard, CI conducted a survey among COPOLCO member countries, CI members, and fair trade organizations. The French standards association (AFNOR), which has recently produced a guidance document on the principles and criteria of fair trade, is joining CI's yearlong investigation of the possibility of a fair trade standard within ISO. CI and AFNOR's survey findings and the issues raised by the survey responses will be discussed at a one-day workshop that will be held immediately prior to COPOLCO's upcoming plenary meeting in Salvador, Brazil at the end of May 2007.

According to CI and AFNOR's preparatory report for the COPOLCO meeting, the desire to standardize fair trade is largely driven by a concern regarding the proliferation of fair trade initiatives, as well as a current environment where false claims are made without any accountability. The CI/AFNOR paper further argues that an ISO fair trade standard could: 1) reduce consumer confusion about various fair/ethical trade-related claims by clarifying the distinction between different certification and labeling schemes; and 2) mainstream the existing fair trade effort. Two possible scopes for an ISO standard are under consideration: a definitions standard that would seek to define ethical trade and clarify the differences between fair trade, ethical trade, sustainable trade, etc; and a baseline standard for ethical/fair trade that would provide minimum requirements for making "fair" or "ethical" claims.

A notable finding of the feasibility and desirability survey is that all of the fair trade organizations consulted oppose fair trade standardization within ISO. In addition, FINE, an umbrella organization of four major fair trade associations, as well as the ISEAL Alliance, an association of international standard-setting, certification, and accreditation organizations that focus on social and environmental issues, have released statements arguing that ISO is not the right venue to develop a fair trade standard. The fair/ethical trade groups, however, acknowledged the concerns raised by consumers organizations, and in particular, recognized the need to have more involvement of consumers in their initiatives. As a possible alternative, the fair/ethical trade organizations also offered to work with CI to develop definitions and categorization of various initiatives, as well as to collaborate on other initiatives that can address consumer concerns.

ISO 26000 Social Responsibility Standard Update

Overview of the Drafting Process
ISO's Social Responsibility Working Group (SR WG) held its fourth plenary meeting at the end of January 2007 in Sydney. The main objective of the meeting was to resolve comments and issues identified through the review of the second Working Draft of the standard and to provide a solid foundation for the preparation of Working Draft 3 (WD3). Numerous drafting teams were created at the Sydney meeting to work on discrete sections of the guidance standard. Once complete, the work of the drafting teams will be amalgamated into WD3, which will then be circulated to the participating members in July 2007 for review. Comments submitted on WD3 will be discussed at the next SR WG plenary meeting to be held in early November in Vienna, Austria.

Progress on the Contents of the Standard
At the Sydney meeting, the WG finalized the seven SR Core issues to be included in the standard: Environment; Human Rights; Labor Practices; Organizational Governance; Fair Operation Practices; Consumer Issues; and Community Involvement/Society Development.

The provisional definition of SR produced in Sydney (and the one that will be included in WD3) reads: "Social responsibility is the responsibility of an organization for the impacts of its decisions and activities on society and the environment, through transparent and ethical behavior that: is consistent with sustainable development and the welfare of society; takes into account the expectations of stakeholders; is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behavior; and is integrated throughout the organization."

Key Topics and Issues
The SR WG Liaison Task Force (LTF), a stakeholder-based body established to address cross-cutting issues in the standard, has been tasked with providing preliminary feedback to the Task Groups' drafting teams midway through the WD3 preparation period so that some issues can be resolved before finalizing the WD3. The issues identified so far include:

- Need for harmonization among the different parts of the standard, in terms of content, presentation, length, level of details, and tone;
- Relationship between issue specific requirements in clause 6 (guidance on core SR issues) and general implementation requirements in clause 7 (guidance for organizations on implementing SR);
- Inconsistent understanding and application of definitions for "social responsibility" and "stakeholder";
- How and whether to delineate "minimum requirements" of the standard; and
- How (and what) to reference with regard to third party initiatives.

The LTF is having a face-to-face meeting in South Africa May 28-30, 2007 to discuss and propose methods of addressing these topics.

Another controversial and still unresolved subject plaguing the WG is the issue of management systems standard (MSS). This topic has been under constant discussion since the very early stages of the SR standard development process, largely driven by industry representatives and some other experts who are strongly opposed to the idea of creating another MSS in the area of Social Responsibility. The SR WG leadership and ISO's senior management have issued several formal communications to confirm that the ISO SR standard should not be an MSS. Most recently, the LTF issued a clarification document to reiterate that the ISO SR standard is not an MSS, but that some MSS language may be necessary to provide useful guidance on how to operationalize social responsibility. Despite such efforts to clarify the issue, disagreements about whether the standard is "too close to an MSS" continues to derail the drafting process whenever an MSS-related concept or language arises. The increasingly tired debates have prevented the drafting groups from having a constructive discussion about how to provide the most useful and effective guidance to implement social responsibility.

ISO's prohibitions barring a systematic management-based approach have already been the source of frustration for numerous experts and have even been cited as reasons for the resignation of a key NGO. In a letter to the WG leadership on April 24, Amnesty International UK announced its withdrawal from the ISO SR process, explaining that with the complete ban on an MSS approach, the ISO SR standard will not be able to provide systematic guidance on social responsibility and its integration into organizational management. The resignation letter also points out that the constraints on the formulation of the standard in general and the Human Rights section in particular have led Amnesty International to believe that the standard will not be able to state clearly enough and with sufficient rigour the actions required of governments and of other parties to comply with their human rights responsibilities.

Progress on Working Group Procedures and Operations
On the procedural side, the Working Group continued to focus on issues related to balanced participation. For instance, the ISO SR Trust Fund, a mechanism to raise and provide funding for under-resourced stakeholders, is now officially operational. An ISO SR Trust Fund Committee has been established to review and monitor sponsorship criteria and allocate funding. The Task Group responsible for media relations is presently developing a detailed guidance on how to communicate with stakeholders and the general public to raise awareness and increase effective participation in the standard's development. And lastly, the Working Group has decided to work closely with the UN Global Compact and its Networks to improve stakeholder participation at national mirror committees on WG SR.

New Activities in the ISO's Committee on Environmental Management

With many of its standards already published or nearing completion, ISO's Technical Committee on Environmental Management (TC 207) is evaluating several new projects and revisiting it overall business plan, all of which will be discussed during the committee's upcoming plenary meeting in June 22-29 in Beijing, China.

Proposals to Develop New Standards on Eco-efficiency and Desert Management
In February 2007, Sweden submitted a proposal - formally named a New Work Item Proposal (NWIP) in ISO terminology - to develop a new international standard on eco-efficiency. The prospective standard would be entitled "Methodological framework for eco-efficiency - with practical guidance for open, comprehensive and understandable presentation of eco-efficiency measures." The purpose of the proposed standard is to harmonize eco-efficiency measurement methods by creating consistent frameworks and definitions pertaining to eco-efficiency-related calculations and communication. The proposal was circulated in February to the members of the TC 207 for a three-month ballot.

Meanwhile, Egypt, China, and Spain are in the process of developing an NWIP to develop a standard on desertification management and mitigation. Egypt first proposed such a standard at TC 207's 2005 plenary meeting in Lisbon. Since then, a brainstorming session was held in at the most recent TC 207 Chair's Advisory Group (CAG) meeting, with the advisory body recommending the proponents of the desertification standard organize a workshop at the Beijing plenary meeting to gather more feedback on the project's scope.

Revision of the TC 207 Strategic Plan
TC 207 has recently been undertaking strategic planning activities, building upon its first strategic plan developed in 2003, as well as its 2005 TC 207 Business Plan. The most recent strategic planning session was held in conjunction with the TC 207 CAG meeting in Berlin in February 2007. The general conclusion from the Berlin session was that the goals and activities in the original strategic plan are still valid but need some updating. Further, the CAG decided to develop implementation proposals to update the existing strategic plan. A draft strategic plan update was circulated to CAG members in early May, and will be presented to and discussed by the full TC 207 membership at the Beijing plenary meeting.

Of note is a proposal put forward at the Berlin strategic session to revise TC 207's scope from "Standardization in the field of environmental management systems and tools in support of sustainable development" to "Standardization in the field of sustainability management, including tools, systems and performance." The purpose of such a change would be to reorient (and likely expand) the committee's work around sustainability issues. A number of countries do not support such a change in scope, and the proposal will certainly be the focus of spirited discussions at the Beijing plenary. Regardless of any conclusions reached at the TC 207 plenary, because there are a number of ISO bodies that develop standards related to sustainability, such as the Working Group on Social Responsibility and TC 176, which recently released a draft standard entitled "Managing for sustainability - a quality management approach," such a change in scope for the TC 207 would require coordination and consultation with other ISO committees as well as approval of ISO's senior management.

NGO-CAG Task Force Submits to TC 207 Its First Deliverables to Improve Balanced Participation
An eight-person group consisting of NGOs and representatives of TC 207's CAG prepared and circulated a number of documents, which collectively represent the first phase of the group's effort to increase the effectiveness of NGO participation in TC 207.

• Recommendations for an improved balance of stakeholder participation in ISO TC 207 - a review of the ISO Directives to determine where additional operational guidance can improve stakeholder-based decision making.
• Stakeholder involvement efforts at the national level: summary and analysis of the NSB survey results
• Update report by the TC 207 Secretary of the governance structure of the TC with the focus on how it undertakes long-term strategic planning, and sets and implements policy decisions.
• Letter from the TC 207 Chair encouraging stakeholder balance in delegation - a formal letter from the Chair of TC 207 to National Standards Bodies (NSBs) communicating his desire that NSBs make an effort to have balanced stakeholder representation at international meetings, particularly at the WG level. In addition, the TC 207 Secretariat has also tentatively established four stakeholder categories to review and track the stakeholder balance at TC 207 meetings. The provisional categories are
  

  a) Government (bodies with policy or regulatory authority);
  b) Producer Interest (those who have or represent an industrial/manufacturing interest);
  c) Service/Professional (those providing advice or services, including those representing standards development organizations); and
  d) General/Public Interest (those who are not primarily associated with commercial interests).

The abovementioned documents represent the Phase 1 deliverables laid out in the Task Force's January 2005 workplan, which itself represents a first step to implement the recommendations identified in the foundational report, Increasing the Effectiveness of NGO Participation in ISO TC207. The CAG will discuss these draft documents at its two Beijing meetings, as well as any recommendations that will be made to the TC 207 membership regarding how to move forward. The full committee will make a final decision on the CAG's recommendation(s) at the closing plenary session on June 29th.

Proposal to Create a new ISO/TC 207 Subcommittee on Climate Change
TC 207's two Working Groups that developed international standards on Greenhouse Gas Emissions (ISO 14064 and 14065) - Working Group 5 on Climate Change and Working Group 6 on Greenhouse Gas Validation and Verification Bodies - are proposing to merge and establish an umbrella subcommittee responsible for the maintenance of these standards, and perhaps also the development of other climate change-related standards. TC 207 will decide whether to create such a Subcommittee on Climate Change at its Beijing plenary meeting.

Miscellaneous News

European Public Interest Groups Release a Position Statement on the Future of EMS-Based Environmental Policy
A group of European environmental and consumer organizations released a position statement on the European Commission's Environmental Management Systems-based Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS). The position paper questions the value and usefulness of the EMAS scheme in its present form, and calls for substantive reform. In particular, the paper identifies a lack of performance requirements and absence of mandatory set of comparable performance indicators as major shortcomings of the voluntary leadership program. The group proposes to establish general and sector specific minimum performance requirements going beyond legal compliance, making EMAS the equivalent of an eco-label for companies. The position statement builds upon the findings of relevant studies, including the report "Going Beyond EMS" published by Force Technology in May 2006.

The European Parliament Passes a Resolution to Strengthen CSR Policy
On March 13, the European Parliament passed a new resolution on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which among many other things, makes reference to ISO's Social Responsibility standard. The relevant statement in the resolution focuses on the possibility of developing parallel methods of external assessment and certification for ISO's 26000 SR guidance whose scope was explicitly decided "not to be intended for external certification". The resolution was the Parliament's response to the European Commission's March 2006 Communication on making the EU a "pole of excellence" for CSR, and proposes concrete policies and implementation suggestions, including a shift of emphasis from "processes" to "outcomes." The main issues covered in the resolution include CSR instruments, the link between CSR and competitiveness, EU's contribution to global CSR, and balance of voluntary and mandatory approaches. Some of the most notable provisions include: suggestions to develop schemes similar to EMAS in the area of labor, social and human rights; proposal to establish a mandatory reporting requirement for companies to disclose their social and environmental impacts; better integration of CSR in trade policies; and consideration of the impact of CSR policies in global supply chains.

UN Report on Mapping International Standards in Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights
On March 28, John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on business and human rights, released his report summarizing the findings of a two-year study and consultation process geared toward providing a mapping of international standards and voluntary initiatives in the area of corporate responsibility and human rights. The goal of the effort was to identify the best methods of addressing corporate activities in relation to human rights. The report "Business and Human Rights: Mapping International Standards of Responsibility and Accountability for Corporate Acts" reviews a wide spectrum of tools ranging from state mandate to self-regulation, and argues that despite the substantial expansion of corporate voluntary initiatives, and international norms and standards in the area of human rights, a lack of clear and binding international standards, as well as undefined state duties and accountabilities in international human rights violations, create a considerable protection gap for victims. The report calls for further discussion and multi-stakeholder consultations to identify practical solutions that incorporate a broad array of measures including both voluntary and mandatory initiatives.
Update on ISO's Water Management Standards
ISO's Technical Committee on water management (TC 224) finished the preparation of the close-to-final versions of its three-part water management standards: ISO 24510, ISO 24511, and ISO 24512. These drafts were sent to the ISO Central Secretariat in April for final editing and printing, and will be circulated to the entire ISO member countries for two-month ballot in August. The results of voting will be available beginning of November. Approval of the FDISs is fairly likely, and the final standards are expected to be published by the end of 2007.

Roundtable Discusses a Potential Certification Program for Freshwater Ecosystem Management
The Nature Conservancy convened a roundtable in October 2006 to discuss the idea of creating a certification program for drinking water utilities based on their contributions to freshwater ecosystem protection and management. Over 50 participants representing the drinking water community, state and local governments, and environmental groups met for two days to review potential incentives and barriers to such a standards-based certification program. The roundtable concluded with the decision to conduct a feasibility assessment to examine an array of approaches to promote freshwater ecosystem sustainability, including but not limited to certification program. Click here for the summary of the roundtable discussion.

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