Following Standards

Just as there are industry standards for the quality and safety of products, so too have industry bodies developed standards for ethical behavior. These best-practice frameworks provide useful guidelines and give you the opportunity to benchmark your effectiveness against similar firms.

Using the frameworks

The Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability, the Open Compliance Ethics Group (OCEG), and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) all provide frameworks for ethics accountability. The processes these organizations use tie social and ethical issues into an organization’s strategic management and operations. This allows for a more holistic view of corporate responsibility, in which risk, opportunity, and the impact on economy and society are integrated into reporting systems alongside more traditional measures of financial success.

Setting guidelines

Launched in 1996, AccountAbility is a US-based nonprofit institute that brings together businesses, academics, and practitioners with the goal of advancing responsible business practices. The organization has set out, and is continuing to develop, a framework called AA1000, through which companies can improve the quality of their social auditing and set standards for accountability.

Another organization that provides accountability frameworks is the Open Compliance Ethics Group (OCEG). This US-based nonprofit organization has worked with over 100 companies to create a comprehensive best practice model for implementing, managing, and evaluating compliance and ethics programs. It documents legal requirements, standards, and principles from a variety of sources and provides practices that help an organization address these requirements. Importantly, the OCEG guidelines can be adapted to fit the specific needs and situations of individual companies.

Leading the way

The need for common standards led to the creation of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), a body of representatives from many national standards organizations, based in Switzerland. Today, ISO is the largest publisher of international standards, many of which have been enshrined in law. The ISO 14,000 series provides environmental standards that help organizations create policies that promote sustainable business practices. Many believe that ISO 14,000 may be a key initiative for worldwide sustainability.