This site provides comments on the ISO 26000 final draft international standard (FDIS), in agreement with the originators. Such comments are supposed to be helpful to take informed decisions at whatever occasion.
This site is open for any kind of comments, not only in the form of the ISO template. For getting your comments uploaded, please contact the author.
Contents
WSBI/ESBI comments The World Saving Banks Institute /European Saving Banks Institute speaks for a great number of larger saving banks but also for thousands of small and medium ones that act only locally as part of the local community
NORMAPME comments NORMAPME cares for the standardization interests of some 12 million small and medium enterprises in Europe, see http://www.normapme.com/
ICC comments ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) is the voice of world business championing the global economy as a force for economic growth, job creation and prosperity. ICC is member organizations in countries all over the world, see http://iccwbo.org/
IOE comments IOE is the International Organisation of Employers. Quote from http://www.ioe-emp.org/ :Since its creation in 1920 the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) has been recognised as the only organisation at the international level that represents the interests of business in the labour and social policy fields. Today, it consists of 147 national employer organisations from 140 countries from all over the world (June 2010).
WSBI/ESBI comments: …is not in a position to express its full and former backing two FDIS 26000, and would like to make the following comments… see this downloadable Word document
IOE Position on ISO (FDIS) 26000:
The IOE believes that many improvements have been made to the latest draft of ISO 26000. However, the IOE has serious concerns with the FDIS based on four main issues that are explained in detail below: 1) the text of the guidance on social responsibility; 2) the persistent and widespread confusion about the status of ISO 26000; 3) the increasing push for certification of ISO 26000; and 4) the process used to develop the guidance. Thus, the IOE is unable to provide its full and formal backing for ISO (FDIS) 26000 and must withhold it support.
Excerpt on certification: “First, the entire basis for developing ISO 26000 was predicated on the broad agreement that it would be limited to guidance and would not be for certification….. Efforts at this stage by ISO national standards bodies to develop national certification variants of ISO 26000 – such as the forthcoming Danish Standards DS 260001 – represent a clear violation of this agreement and fundamentally undermine one of the keys areas of consensus behind developing ISO 26000 in the first place…. For these reasons, efforts by national standards bodies to develop national variations of ISO 26000 and offer them for certification are inherently irresponsible.”
Excerpt on the free availability of ISO 26000: “Most – if not all – other ISO products are designed to lead to commercial benefits to the user; in contrast, ISO 26000 is designed to have broader social benefits. This fact alone should have been enough justification for the ISO Council to make ISO 26000 freely available – the refusal to do so in order to defend ISO’s “business model” reflects a deep and troubling lack of understanding about the subject of social responsibility, and raises additional questions about whether ISO should engage in any further work in this area.”
The 4 pages document can be downloaded here.
ICC Position on ISO/FDIS 26000
ICC believes that the latest draft of ISO 26000 has benefited from some improvements. However, due to continued concerns conveyed by ICC members, ICC is unable to provide its “full and formal backing” of ISO (FDIS) 26000, and therefore must withhold its support.
The four pages document is structured into
– ICC views on the Text
– Concerns about the Process
– Lack of clarity on the status
– The Push for Certification of ISO 26000
the full four pages document can be downloaded here.
NORMAPME comments
NORMAPME’s key statements is the following:
NORMAPME is dedicated to looking after the interests of European small and medium enterprises in standardization. We appreciate the intensive work of ISO/TMB/WG SR over the last five years but have to recognize that
NORMAPME is the only true representation of SMO interests in this ISO 26000 project
SMO stand for more than 95% of all possible ISO 26000 users, and that
their main concerns and proposals have not been sufficiently taken into account when drafting the FDIS.
We remain convinced that the entire wisdom on SR guidance contained in the FDIS could easily be expressed in half the number of words and that such a shorter document would be much easier to use.
NORMAPME is ready to contribute to the further improvement of the guidance standard, on the basis of our comments. We recommend for any further work that SMO interests are properly represented, on a global scale. In particular, we believe that, in order to establish balanced representation of stakeholders, SMOs should be represented by an additional category of stakeholders; hence, SMOs should constitute an independent stakeholder group in the process.
Within the FDIS vote (deadline 12 September 2010) ISO is seeking “full and formal backing” from the D-Liaison organizations. NORMAPME is not in a position to express this full and formal backing.
The full document is here available.