Corporate Social Responsibility Management System Standard: Is it Possible?

Editorial Notes

Abstract

When ISO 26000 published its first draft there were great expectations both inside the 
technical committee members and among the experts around the world that it would 
bring about drastic changes. This was mostly due to the world's taste for such a coura
geous effort. The amount of comments were so huge that the dates for issuing the draft 
at different stages of its progress were all delayed. It was in fact in part also due to 
some expected resistance on the part of those powers who were confronted with a pos
sible great threat. Some definitions were going to be established as an international 
standard. Issues related to human rights, labour and environment have always been 
strongly defeated by some powers. The ever increasing attention worldwide shown by 
many comments sent to the committee in one side and the pressure to avoid a high 
level of social responsibility standard altogether led to a document existing now as the 
GUIDELINE for social responsibility instead of STANDARD. However it is a first 
step and to be optimistic one should say that it is perfectly ok for a start. 
One of the reasons, or better to say one of the remedies, for the powers to oppose to 
the creation of an international standard for corporate social responsibility is that a one 
size fits all approach to social responsibility is not applicable everywhere. It might be 
negated by emphasizing on the harmonized creature of human being, which is the real 
reason for any religion or human philosophy. A claim like this is equal to saying that 
as government in the world has its own way so they don’t need any instituted sets of 
rule to follow and every government can create its own. And the world which is going 
to grow to a globalised community is the best forum to reject this claim completely. 
Social responsibility is a matter of concern for human kind everywhere and in every 
aspect of their life consisting of technology and engineering, justice and law, labour 
and consumption and so on. To put it into a nutshell social responsibility is the disci
pline and rule set of life: both career life and social life.