The ISO and corporate social responsibility: stakeholder engagement, ISO and corporate social responsibility

Multi-stakeholder engagement is a central theme of the corporate social responsibility (CSR), or social responsibility (SR) agenda. In the context of discussions on developing an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard on SR, this paper examines a) how multi-stakeholder engagement can inform the development of an appropriate process for CSR-related work within the ISO, and b) how the content of any ISO output might itself address multi-stakeholder engagement.

A key argument of the paper is that there are many challenges surrounding equitable and effective stakeholder engagement, and that in practice this has often meant that more marginalised groups including developing countries, and civil society groups more generally have been underrepresented in standard setting. The paper argues that while the ISO and its member bodies cannot be expected to tackle all of the constraints, in order to make a positive contribution it should:

• ensure it’s approach to stakeholder engagement is informed by an understanding of the current constraints to stakeholder engagement in the CSR agenda
• accept some responsibility for tackling financial and human capacity challenges that work against multi-stakeholder engagement by playing a more proactive role in advocating broad-based multi-stakeholder participation
• go beyond providing opportunities for stakeholders to participate in the development of any CSR-related standard to creating the circumstances in which those opportunities are likely to be realized
• step up it’s efforts to address the lack of developing country stakeholder participation in standardization, including through enhanced availability of financial resources for engagement, non-technical guides and technical assistance
• develop a guide for national standards bodies on stakeholder engagement in CSR-related standards-setting. This should provide guidance on proactive steps to encourage broad-based stakeholder engagement, and tailored guidance on the application of key ISO rules of procedure, including ISO’s specific definition of ‘consensus’
• in the event of a decision to proceed with a CSR-related standard, ISO should at the earliest possible stage develop a guide for potential participants, incorporating an overview of the relevant ISO rules of procedure; guidance on different entry points to the process; and an outline of the sources of financial resources, assistance and additional advice on how to engage
• any ISO CSR-related outputs will need to be capable of providing nonprescriptive meaningful guidance to businesses on issues of stakeholder engagement. They should draw on, or make links to, existing guidance, for example the AA1000 family of standards and the outputs of the Business Partners for Development process.