ISO Social Responsibility Standard Update
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Overview of the drafting process
This past November, ISO's Social Responsibility Working Group (SR WG) held its fifth plenary meeting in Vienna, Austria. The meeting had two main objectives: to resolve enough key topics that emerged from comments submitted on the third Working Draft (WD3) in order to produce the draft to follow the Vienna meeting; and to progress the operational framework of the Working Group in order to further enhance participation, accountability and efficiency of the process. While the Working Group made progress on both of these objectives, particularly in resolving various issues in the WD3, the experts decided not to proceed to the Committee Draft (CD) phase as initially planned. Instead, they opted to develop another Working Draft (WD4). Although some expressed concerns that this will extend the drafting process by almost one year, the delay will give the Working Group an opportunity to solidify the operating procedures for decision making at the national level before moving to the CD phase-a phase during which comments and votes will be based on national consensus positions. The immediate Working Group work plan consists of two rounds of drafting and commenting on the WD4 before the next plenary meeting in Santiago, Chile in September 2008.
Key topics and issues
With WD3 having received about 7,000 comments from the experts, numerous drafting teams within Task Groups 4, 5 and 6 have been working (even prior to Vienna) to incorporate them into the next draft. In addition, the Liaison Task Force (LTF), a stakeholder-based body established to address issues that cut across the scope of several Task Groups (TG), identified a number of major issues that were discussed at the Vienna meeting. The two of the more significant meeting outcomes were:
1) Moving forward, how to address cross-cutting issues more effectively and improve the consistency among various parts of the standard more efficiently.
Although the LTF had been working to identify and advise the drafting of cross-cutting issues, the actual drafting was done by over a dozen individual drafting teams, which hampered efforts to address certain cross-cutting issues. To make the drafting process more efficient and the document more consistent, the Working Group created the Integrated Drafting Task Force (IDTF). With the expanded mandate to actually revise the drafts of the standard, the IDTF has replaced the now defunct LTF. Based on the principle of balanced participation, the IDTF is comprised of two representatives per category with the consideration of gender and geographical representation (developing and developed countries), the conveners and co-conveners of standard setting TGs, and one representative each from WG editing committee, ILO and UN Global Compact.
2) How to address existing voluntary Social Responsibility initiatives in the standard.
A contentious issue since the early stages of the standard's development, many experts in the labor and industry stakeholder groups have opposed referencing voluntary SR initiatives in the main body of the standard. Although the general decision to include such references had been made at the WG's previous meeting in Sydney, the question of exactly which initiatives and how and where to make reference to them remained unsettled.
To help resolve this issue, the Working Group established an ad hoc group on voluntary SR initiatives. The interim group will develop general guidance for the IDTF on how to address issues relating to voluntary SR initiatives in the drafting of WD4, including the nature of reference, where it would be referenced (i.e., within the main text, the appendix, or in help boxes), the selection criteria for inclusion, and the definition of international norms. The ad hoc group will also consider issues such as how to reference these initiatives without suggesting endorsement and how to distinguish intergovernmental instruments from voluntary market-based initiatives. Membership of the ad hoc group is based on the stakeholder principle - up to three representatives per stakeholder category, one from ILO, one from UN Global Compact, and the IDTF convener.
Operating procedure for balanced participation at the national level
November's Working Group meeting took a significant step in bringing the principle of balanced stakeholder participation to the national level. Within ISO, the Working Group has been at the forefront of establishing formal mechanisms and procedures to ensure full and balanced stakeholder participation and decisionmaking in its standard setting activities. However, prior to the Vienna meeting, these procedures focused on the activities within the Working Group itself, leaving very little guidance regarding stakeholder balance at the national level. The importance of stakeholder-based decisionmaking in national mirror committees became more pronounced as the ISO 26000 standard approached the Committee Draft stage. During the Working Draft phase, national member bodies simply compile and transmit the comments as they are developed by individual experts. In the Committee Draft stage however, commenting, as well as voting, either to approve or disapprove the draft standard, are based on national consensus positions developed within the mirror committee. If national mirror committees do not operate under the same principle of balanced stakeholder decisionmaking as required for Working Group activities, minority groups could loose their voices in the decisionmaking process.
- In order to help ensure full and balanced stakeholder participation at the national level, the Working Group developed and approved operational guidance for national mirror committees. The guidance provides detailed instructions intended to help ensure minority voices at the national level are heard and transmitted to the Working Group. Some of the guidance provisions include:All stakeholder groups' positions should be treated equally, regardless of the number of individuals included in the respective group;
- When submitting comments/votes, national members should provide the Working Group a list of stakeholder groups present in their domestic process (and thus constituting national consensus positions);
- Minority stakeholder group positions in disagreement with their national mirror committee consensus position should be transmitted to the WG SR Secretary separately. The Secretary will, in turn, compile the minority comments and disseminate them to the Working Group for informational purposes.
In addition to the operating procedure, the Working Group asked ISO's senior management body (the TMB) to remind national member bodies that representatives of each of the stakeholder groups need to be included in the ISO 26000 process and, that national positions should be defined in full consideration of the interests of these stakeholders.
This operational procedure on national input marks a significant milestone for not only the SR Working Group, but also for ISO generally, which has long-preferred a decentralized approach based on national member body sovereignty concerns as opposed to top-down guidance. This positive development in the SR WG could provide momentum for other ISO committees to adopt such rules, such as Technical Committee 207 for Environmental Management, which has been pursuing possible mechanisms that can help broaden stakeholder participation with its work.
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| Decision on ISO Standardization on Fair/Ethical Trade Deferred Until Fact-Finding Process Complete |
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At its May plenary meeting in Brazil, ISO's Consumer Policy Committee (COPOLCO) decided to step back from its initial plan to develop an ISO standardization proposal for fair trade in order to first establish a fact-finding process to better understand the problems and potential solutions concerning the broader concept of ethical labelling and issues associated with their credibility and accountability with consumers. Since 2006, ISO and Consumers International (CI) were working to evaluate the feasibility and desirability of an ISO standard for fair trade. In early 2007, COPOLCO, in cooperation with Consumers International and the French standards body AFNOR, conducted a survey and consulted stakeholders including the major fair trade organizations. Following the survey, COPOLCO held a workshop at its most recent plenary meeting. The workshop, titled "Can consumers rely on fair trade claims?," presented the findings from the consultation, and housed discussion on issues associated with the proliferation of ethical trade labels, and consumers' concern about the credibility of various initiatives and labels.
Based on the results of the CI-AFNOR survey/consultation and subsequent workshop, COPOLCO agreed it was premature to move forward with standards development until more factual information about core issues and problems could be gathered and analyzed. In addition to CI, AFNOR, and the Brazilian national standard bodies (ABNT), the steering committee of the joint fact-finding group currently includes the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT), the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (ISEAL). CI is hosting and supporting the activity relieving ISO of the work for the moment. The group has decided on the initial scope and workplan for the fact-finding process and is currently seeking the necessary funding to implement it. The project, titled "the Ethical Trade Fact-Finding (ETFF) Process," will be implemented over two nine-month phases, and has two main objectives: to establish a multi-stakeholder-driven process to clarify the nature and extent of inaccurate or false claims and the problems such claims present for consumers; and to develop potential solutions to address the problems identified. In particular, the project aims to examine: the extent of consumer confusion; impacts of consumer confusion problems; impacts of inaccurate/false claims on other stakeholders; and existing methods/attempts to address the problem. As a part of the project's first phase, the ETFF process will hold a multi-stakeholder roundtable to discuss and gather input on the issues. The joint group will report back to COPOLCO at its next plenary meeting in South Korea in May 2008.
The decision to put the ISO standardization of ethical trade on hold is seen as a positive development by fair trade organizations. 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, had released statements prior to the May workshop arguing that ISO is not the right venue to develop a fair trade standard. The fact-finding process will give both consumer groups and fair trade organizations opportunities to work together to investigate the issues more closely before assessing whether moving into standardization could have significant benefits in the area of ethical trade.
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| More ISO Standards in Sustainability Field |
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Two years into the 2005-2010 strategic plan that formally initiated ISO's vision of becoming a developer of "Standards for Sustainable World," ISO is rapidly increasing its activities in the social and environmental arenas, including energy management, sustainable fishery and green building.
In February 2007, ISO established a new Technical Committee (TC 234 - Fisheries and Aquaculture) to develop standards that will promote the sustainable management of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors. The scope of the new committee includes such aspects as monitoring of biological resources, environmental awareness, animal health and welfare, occupational health and safety, food safety, data reporting, waste disposal, and terminology. The Norwegian standards body (SN), which is serving as the secretariat of TC 234, hosted the committee's first plenary meeting in October in Bergen, Norway. Fourteen countries are participating in the committee, and another 17 countries have observer status. In addition, Codex Alimentarius Commission, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are participating as liaison organizations. Click here to download the new work item proposal and draft business plan for TC 234.
In September 2007, the ISO Council launched an action plan to enhance ISO's contribution to energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Five priority areas have been selected for their potential contribution to energy savings and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions:
- harmonization of terminology and calculation methods on energy efficiency, consumption, and savings;
energy management standards to provide a systemic approach to the continual improvement of energy performance;
- standards for liquid and solid biofuels, biomass, biogas, and their sustainable production;
- standards covering retrofitting and refurbishing to help with the upgrading of buildings and factories;
- standards covering the energy efficiency of buildings.
Some of these suggested activities are already moving forward. For instance, a proposal to develop a standard for solid biofuel was submitted by the Swedish standards body (SIS), and the US standards body (ANSI) has developed a proposal and justification study to create an ISO energy management standard.
In October 2007, ISO published a standard for sustainable building construction: ISO 21930:2007- Sustainability in building construction - Environmental declaration of building products. It was developed by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 59, Building construction, subcommittee SC 17, Sustainability in building construction. The standard describes the principles and framework for environmental declarations relating to building products and materials, and aims to establish uniformity and consistency in the way environmental product declarations are made. These declarations contain the information about the environmental aspects of the building material for its entire life-cycle, and will provide reliable guidance for purchasers who are interested in environmentally-friendly materials.
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| ISO's Senior Management Body Establishes Task Force on Sustainability |
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The rapid proliferation of sustainability-related standardization in ISO, especially activities recently initiated in existing technical committees, has raised some concerns within ISO. Many of these sector or technology-specific ISO technical committees do not have broad expertise relating to environmental and/or social issues. In addition, they are often populated solely by industry experts without any meaningful input or participation by civil society groups or other affected stakeholders. Plus, there is minimal on-going monitoring to verify that new standardization activities fall within the scope of a certain technical committee, or if they require coordination with other committees. Such problems became evident with the revision of standard ISO 9004.2 -Managing for sustainability - A quality management system approach. Technical Committee 176 for quality management started revising this standard to integrate the concept of sustainability and did so without prior consultation or cooperation with other technical committees involved in sustainability issues (such as Working Group on Social Responsibility, WG SR). As a result, some of the contents covered in the draft ISO 9004.2 standard have direct overlap with the ISO 26000 Social Responsibility standard. The WG SR leadership expressed its concern (as did others within ISO) and asked ISO's management body to look into the issue.
ISO's central management body, the Technical Management Board (TMB), recognized this episode as the first of what could be many prospective conflicts related to ISO's expansion into the sustainability field. In June 2007, the TMB established a task force on sustainability to: develop communication regarding ISO and sustainability; carry out an inventory/survey of ISO work relevant to sustainability; and develop terms of reference for a possible advisory group on sustainability. At its last meeting in September 2007, the TMB issued a resolution on sustainability in which it responded to the concern by WG SR by asking ISO Central Secretariat and sustainability task force to look into the issue with ISO 9004.2. The resolution also asked the task force and Central Secretariat to monitor and report any developments by technical committees in the area of sustainability to ensure they remain within their existing scopes.
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| ISO's Water Management Standards Completed |
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ISO's three water management standards (ISO 24510 - Service to users; ISO 24511 - Management of wastewater utilities; and ISO 24512 - Management of drinking water utilities) were approved unanimously by ISO members in November and published on December 1st. With the standards finished, the water committee's focus has shifted to promotion and implementation of the standards. At its last plenary meeting held in Tokyo in November, the committee disbanded its three standards developing working groups (Working Group 2, 3 and 4) and created three new Working Groups. The new Working Groups are responsible for exploring the potential to develop new publications that provide: examples of implementation of three water standards (WG5); guidelines for physical asset management of water supply and wastewater systems (WG6); and crisis management of water utilities (WG7). Member countries are also asked to report the status and examples of regional applications that could feed the possible development of a regional guide for implementation, along with the future review and revision of the standards. The new Working Groups, however, have a longer timeline - they are to come up with new work proposals by 2011 when the committee next plans to meet.
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Miscellaneous News
ISO, WRI and WBCSD Formally Agree to Jointly Promote Their Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Verification Standards
ISO, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly promote the ISO 14064 standard for GHG accounting and verification and WRI/WBCSD's GHG Protocol. This official announcement of cooperation between the initiatives responds to concerns among businesses that the two standards might not be consistent. Informally, these organizations have been working together for several years, with WRI and WBCSD involved in the development of ISO 14064 to ensure the two standards are consistent and complementary to one another. With this formal agreement, the three organizations expect to promote the standards more effectively by joining their capacity for training and education, as well as developing integrated tools and materials for implementation.
ISO's Environmental Management Committee Establishes New Subcommittee on Greenhouse Gas Management
The proposal to create a new Subcommittee on greenhouse gas management (SC 7) was approved by ISO's senior management in August 2007. The new subcommittee was created by merging two Working Groups within the committee that developed international standards on greenhouse gas measurement, reporting and verification (ISO 14064 and 14065). While the main objective of the SC 7 is to maintain these two standards, the broad scope of the new Subcommittee raises the likely possibility that it may expand its work and develop additional climate change-related standards.
ISO Considers Standardization for Stakeholder Engagement
At its last plenary meeting in May 2007, ISO's Consumer Policy Committee (COPOLCO) decided to develop a proposal for a new ISO standard that would provide guidance on how organizations can obtain consumer and public interest stakeholder input. Initiated by a COPOLCO working group on consumer participation, the final product would provide practical guidance and tools for organizations that are looking to establish stakeholder engagement activities.
European Public Interest Groups' Review on ISO 14000 Series
A group of European environmental and consumer organizations released a consensus review of ISO's environmental management standards (ISO 14000 series). The paper reviewed key standards in the series including environmental management systems, environmental labels and declarations, environmental performance evaluation, life cycle assessment, and environmental communication. The analysis highlights major problems with the standards, and suggests an outline of necessary changes and additions from a public interest perspective.
A Report on the State of Voluntary Environmental Initiatives
Pollution Probe, a Canadian environmental NGO, released a report summarizing the state of voluntary environmental initiatives and other emerging environmental policy instruments. The findings suggest that targeted and well-structured voluntary initiatives can play an important supplementary role to conventional regulatory approaches as a part of an integrated environmental protection regime.
A Research Paper Examines the Implication of WTO Rules for ISO SR Standard
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) released a report that examines how the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) can affect ISO 26000 and other international instruments. The study analyzes the WTO rules to assess if and how WTO could require member countries to use ISO SR standard as a basis for domestic measures, and thus limit the application of other, more detailed or more rigorous international instruments.
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