CSR-Related Reporting and Management Standards
It is now widely acknowledged that best practices relating to the implementation of effective corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices must include a commitment to transparency and reporting on CSR-related activities and impacts to the organization’s stakeholders, either as part of or in addition to any other disclosures that may be required of the organization by law or statute. In addition, CSR is like any other important strategic initiative and should be carried out pursuant to a formal sustainability management system and process that includes due diligence, development, and implementation of strategic and operational goals and plans, monitoring, and assessment of impacts overseen by the members of the governing body of the organization. Several of the most influential and widely used CSR-related standards have specifically addressed reporting and management and are briefly described below in this chapter.1
Reporting Standards
In order to know whether or not the CSR initiative and its related commitments are actually improving the company’s performance it is necessary to have in place procedures for reporting and verification, each of which are important tools for measuring change and communicating those changes to the company’s stakeholders. Hohnen and Potts described reporting as “communicating with stakeholders about a firm’s economic, environmental and social management and performance” and verification, which is often referred to as “assurance,” as a form of measurement that involves on-site inspections and review of management systems to determine levels of conformity to particular criteria set out in codes and standards to which the company may have agreed to adhere.2 Verification procedures should be tailored to the company’s organizational culture and the specific elements of the company’s CSR strategy and commitments; however, it is common for companies to rely on internal audits, industry (i.e., peer) and stakeholder reviews and professional third-party audits. Verification procedures should be established before a specific CSR initiative is undertaken and should be included in the business case for the initiative.3
When establishing plans for reporting and verification it is useful to obtain and review copies of reports that have been done and published by comparable companies. Reports of larger companies are generally available on their corporate websites and extensive archives of past CSR-focused reports can be accessed through various online platforms such as CorporateRegister.com, a widely recognized global online directory of corporate responsibility reports. It is also important to have a good working understanding of well-known reporting and verification initiatives such as the Global Reporting Initiative Standards; the AccountAbility AA1000 series; the United Nations Global Compact; and the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board ISAE 3000 standard. Country-specific information is also available through professional organizations such as the Canadian Chartered Professional Accountants, which has published an extensive report on sustainability reporting in Canada.
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) (www.globalreporting.org) was founded in 1997 by the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics (CERES) in Boston, Massachusetts, to develop a standardized sustainability reporting framework that would effectively capture and describe the sustainability activities that transpire in the economic, environmental, and social aspects of organizational operations.4 The goal of the GRI has been to serve as a multistakeholder developed international independent organization that helps businesses, governments, and other organizations understand and communicate the impact of business on critical sustainability issues such as climate change, human rights, corruption, and many others. In so doing, reporting enterprises can make better decisions regarding the actions that should be taken toward a more sustainable economy and world. When it was formed, the GRI was one of the pioneers of sustainability reporting. Since then, the GRI has been a primary driver of transforming sustainability reporting from a niche practice to one now adopted by a growing majority of organizations. The GRI’s standards are the world’s most widely used with respect to sustainability reporting and disclosure and are available for use by public agencies, firms, and other organizations wishing to understand and communicate aspects of their economic, environmental, and social performance. The GRI’s reporting standards are based on widely recognized international norms and normative frameworks on sustainability such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the ILO Conventions, the ten principles of the UN Global Compact, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.5
The latest version of the GRI’s sustainability reporting framework was published, following extensive consultation, in October 2016 and formally went into effect for reports and other materials published on or after July 1, 2018. Reporting is required in three categories: economic (e.g., economic performance, indirect economic impacts, procurement practices etc.); environmental (e.g., materials, energy, water, transport, environmental grievance mechanisms etc.); and social, which includes labor practices and decent work (e.g., employment, occupational health and safety, training and education etc.), human rights (e.g., nondiscrimination, forced or compulsory labor, indigenous rights etc.), society (e.g., local communities etc.), and product responsibility (e.g., customer health and safety, product and service labeling, customer privacy etc.). As has been the case with previous version of the GRI framework, companies are expected to follow four fundamental principles when defining the content of their sustainability reports: materiality (i.e., the report should cover topics that reflect the company’s significant economic, environmental, and social impacts), stakeholder inclusiveness (i.e., the report should identify the company’s stakeholders and explain how the company has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests), sustainability context (i.e., performance should be explained in the wider context of sustainability), and completeness (i.e., the report should cover material topics and their boundaries, sufficient to reflect significant economic, environmental, and social impacts, and to enable stakeholders to assess organizational performance). Quality standards applicable to sustainability reported based on the GRI framework include accuracy, balance, clarity, comparability, reliability, and timeliness.
International Integrated Reporting Framework
The International Integrated Reporting Council, (IIRC; www.theiirc.org) is a global coalition of regulators, investors, companies, standard setters, the accounting profession, and NGOs dedicated to promoting communications about value creation as the next step in the evolution of corporate reporting.6 The IIRC, which was founded in August 2010, released its International Integrated Reporting Framework in December 2013 as a guide that companies could use to describe how their governance structure creates value in the short, medium, and long term; supports decision making that takes into account risks and includes mechanisms for addressing ethical issues; exceeds legal requirements; and ensures that the culture, ethics, and values of the company are reflected in its use of and effects on the company’s “capitals” (described to include financial, manufactured, intellectual, human, social and relationship, and natural (i.e., the environment and natural resources) forms of value) and stakeholder relationships.7
The IRRC Framework was aimed primarily at producing information for long-term investors and providing companies with guiding principles and content elements that would govern the content of their integrated reports.8 The executive summary to the Framework explained that the drafters had taken a principles-based approach with the intent to strike an appropriate balance between flexibility and prescription that recognized the wide variation in individual circumstances of different organizations while enabling a sufficient degree of comparability across organizations to meet relevant information needs. According to the executive summary, the following guiding principles underpin the preparation of an integrated report, informing the content of the report and how information is presented9:
• Strategic focus and future orientation: An integrated report should provide insight into the organization’s strategy, and how it relates to the organization’s ability to create value in the short, medium, and long term, and to its use of and effects on the capitals
• Connectivity of information: An integrated report should show a holistic picture of the combination, interrelatedness, and dependencies between the factors that affect the organization’s ability to create value over time
• Stakeholder relationships: An integrated report should provide insight into the nature and quality of the organization’s relationships with its key stakeholders, including how and to what extent the organization understands, takes into account and responds to their legitimate needs and interests
• Materiality: An integrated report should disclose information about matters that substantively affect the organization’s ability to create value over the short, medium, and long term
• Conciseness: An integrated report should be concise
• Reliability and completeness: An integrated report should include all material matters, both positive and negative, in a balanced way and without material error
• Consistency and comparability: The information in an integrated report should be presented: (a) on a basis that is consistent over time and (b) in a way that enables comparison with other organizations to the extent it is material to the organization’s own ability to create value over time.
In addition, the executive summary to the Framework explained that reports should include the following content elements, each of which are fundamentally linked to each other and are not mutually exclusive10:
• Organizational overview and external environment: What does the organization do and what are the circumstances under which it operates?
• Governance: How does the organization’s governance structure support its ability to create value in the short, medium, and long term?
• Business model: What is the organization’s business model?
• Risks and opportunities: What are the specific risks and opportunities that affect the organization’s ability to create value over the short, medium, and long term, and how is the organization dealing with them?
• Strategy and resource allocation: Where does the organization want to go and how does it intend to get there?
• Performance: To what extent has the organization achieved its strategic objectives for the period and what are its outcomes in terms of effects on the capitals?
• Outlook: What challenges and uncertainties is the organization likely to encounter in pursuing its strategy, and what are the potential implications for its business model and future performance?
• Basis of presentation: How does the organization determine what matters to include in the integrated report and how are such matters quantified or evaluated?
International Standards of Accounting and Reporting
The Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR), which is hosted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), has issued a series of reports relating to nonfinancing reporting that provide guidance to companies on environmental accounting and reporting, corporate governance disclosure, and corporate responsibility reporting in annual reports. ISAR assists developing countries and economies in transition in the implementation of best practices for accounting and corporate governance with the goal of enhancing the investment climate in those countries and economies and promoting sustainable development.
Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) (www.sasb.org) is a U.S.-based independent standards-setting organization for sustainability accounting standards that was incorporated in July 2011 to meet the needs of investors by fostering high-quality disclosure of material sustainability information. The SASB has established industry-based sustainability standards for the recognition and disclosure of material environmental, social, and governance impacts by companies traded on U.S. exchanges.11 The standards focus on known trends and uncertainties that are reasonably likely to affect the financial condition or operating performance of a company and therefore would be considered material under mandatory disclosure requirements, such as Regulation S-K applicable to disclosures made by U.S. reporting companies in the public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SASB is an ANSI-accredited standards developer; however, it is not affiliated with FASB, GASB, IASB, or any other accounting standards board.
SASB standards do not include a scoring system, instead the focus is on providing companies with a standardized methodology that can be deployed when reporting sustainability performance through their regular regulatory reporting to the SEC on Forms 10-K and 10-Q (i.e., an “integrated reporting” approach as opposed to separate nonfinancial reports). SASB’s standards enable comparison of peer performance and benchmarking within an industry and the SASB has gathered the support of Bloomberg LP and the Rockefeller Foundation. The SASB publishes the SASB Implementation Guide for Companies that provides the structure and the key considerations for companies seeking to implement sustainability accounting standards within their existing business functions and processes.12 The Guide helps companies to select sustainability topics; assess the current state of disclosure and management; embed SASB standards into financial reporting and management processes; support disclosure and management with internal control; and present information for disclosure. The SASB’s online resource library also includes annual reports on the state of disclosure, industry briefs and standards, and guidance on stakeholder engagement. Companies should monitor CSR disclosures by their peers and the SASB library has examples of disclosures made by companies in annual reports filed with the SEC on Form 10-K.
A management system refers to what an organization does to manage its structures, processes, activities, and resources in order that its products or services meet the organization’s objectives, such as satisfying the customer’s quality requirements, complying with regulations, and/or meeting environmental objectives. Elements of a management system include policy, planning, implementation and operations, performance assessment, improvement, and management review. By systemizing the way it does things, an organization can increase efficiency and effectiveness, make sure that nothing important is left out of the process and ensure that everyone is clear about who is responsible for doing what, when, how, why, and where. While all organizations should benefit from some form of management system, they are particularly important for larger organizations or ones with complicated processes. Management systems have been used for a number of years in sectors such as aerospace, automobiles, defense, and health care.
Organizations implement management systems for a variety of reasons such as achieving business objectives, increasing understanding of current operations and the likely impact of change, communicating knowledge, demonstrating compliance with legal requirements and/or industry standards, establishing “best practice,” ensuring consistency, setting priorities, or changing behavior. Organizations often have more than one management system to deal with different activities or assets and integrate several related operational areas. For example, a customer relationship management system (CRM) might be launched to manage relationships with customers. A preventive maintenance management (PMM) and financial management systems may be used to preserve the value of organizational assets and human resource management systems merge and integrate the principles of human resource management with information technology. Other management systems focus on managing all relevant areas of operation in relation to a specific aspect such as quality, environment, health and safety, information technology, data security, corporate social responsibility, risk management, and business continuity.
Even though they may not realize it, all organizations have some sort of management system—“the way things get done”—in place. Elements of the system may be documented in the form of policies and checklists, but much of the system is based on unwritten rules and customs. The interest of organizational leaders in management systems is based not only on the desire to understand how things are currently done but also to find out how “things should be done” in order to improve organizational performance. Fortunately, reference can be made to management system standards, such as those promulgated by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (www.iso.org), which are intended to provide all organizations with easy access to international “state-of-the-art” models that they can follow in implementing their own management systems. Management systems standards are concerned with processes, meaning the way that organizations go about carrying out their required work—they are not product and service standards, although processes certainly impact the quality of the organization’s final products and services.
Many of the ISO standards are intended to be generic, which means that they can be applied to any organization, large or small, whatever its product or service; in any sector of activity; and whether it is a business enterprise, a public administration, or a government department. The standards specify the requirements for a management system (e.g., objectives, policy, planning, implementation and operation, performance assessment, improvement, and management review); however, the actual format of the system must be determined by the organization itself taking into account its specific goals and the environment in which it operates. ISO standards are available for management systems covering a broad range of topics including quality (ISO 9001, discussed below), environment (ISO 14001, discussed below), medical device quality (ISO 13485), medical devise risk (ISO 14971), information security (ISO 27001 and ISO 27002), business continuity (ISO 22301), supply chain security (ISO 28000), corporate risk (ISO 31000), food safety (ISO 22000), and management auditing (ISO 19011).
Organizations interested in improving their practices with respect to social responsibility, including engagement with their stakeholders, may refer to ISO 26000; however, ISO 26000 is not a management system standard and does not contain requirements. Instead, ISO 26000 explains the core subjects and associated issues relating to social responsibility including organizational governance, human rights, labor practices, the environment, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and community involvement and development. For each core subject, information is provided on its scope, including key issues; its relationship to social responsibility; related principles and considerations; and related actions and expectations. For example, with respect to labor practices, one of the core subjects, organizations are reminded to integrate consideration of the following issues into their policies, organizational culture, strategies, and operations: employment and employment relationships; conditions of work and social protection; social dialogue; health and safety at work; and human development and training in the workplace.13
Organizations may, and often do, seek and obtain certification by independent outside parties that their management systems conform to the requirements of ISO standards. In lieu of certification, or in preparation for a certification audit, organizations should conduct formal self-assessments on a regular basis that cover quality management system requirements; management responsibility requirements; resource management requirements; product realization requirements (e.g., planning, determination of customer requirements, design, and development, purchasing, production and service provision); and measurement, analysis, and improvement requirements.14
AccountAbility
AccountAbility (http://accountability.org/) is a global consulting and standards firm formed in 1995 that works with business, governments, and multilateral organizations to advance responsible business practices and improve their long-term performance. AccountAbility works with organizations to improve their performance through their sustainability strategy, the environmental and social impact of their operations, innovation and growth opportunities, stakeholder engagement, and the reporting of their information. AccountAbility provides advisory services in areas such as strategy and governance, materiality review, stakeholder engagement, impact assessment, and reporting and communications and performs and publishes research relating to collaborative governance, impact, materiality, responsible competitiveness, stakeholder engagement, and sustainability leadership. AccountAbility also offers training in the field of sustainability assurance and licenses its methodologies to sustainability professionals worldwide for their use in conducting sustainability-related assurance engagements.
AccountAbility has become widely recognized for its AA1000 Series of Standards, which are principles-based standards and frameworks that have been adopted and used by a broad spectrum of organizations—global businesses, private enterprises, governments, and civil societies—to demonstrate leadership and performance in accountability, responsibility and sustainability and guide their approach to sustainability strategy, governance, and operational management. The AA1000 Series includes the AA1000 AccountAbility Principles Standard (AA1000AP, 2018) (a framework for an organization to identify, prioritize, and respond to its sustainability challenges); the AA 1000 Assurance Standard (AA1000AS, 2008 with 2018 Addendum) (a methodology for assurance practitioners to evaluate the nature and extent to which an organization adheres to the AccountAbility Principles)15; and the AA1000 Stakeholder Engagement Standard (AA1000SES, 2015) (a framework to help organizations ensure stakeholder engagement processes are purpose-driven, robust, and deliver results)16. Each of the AccoutAbility standards was developed through a multistakeholder consultation process to help organizations become more accountable, responsible, and sustainable, and address issues affecting governance, business models, and organizational strategy.
AA1000AP (2018), which is the foundation of the AccountAbility series of standards, is based on four fundamental principles17:
• Impact: Impact is the effect of behavior, performance, and/or outcomes, on the part of individuals or an organization, on the economy, the environment, society, stakeholders, or the organization itself. Organizations have a responsibility to monitor, measure, and be accountable for how their action affect their broader ecosystems and the principle of impact is of central importance to the accountability process and supports the interactions among the other fundamental principles.
• Materiality: Decision makers need to identify and be clear about the sustainability topics that matter most to their organizations and stakeholders. In order to do this, attention needs to be paid to the principle of materiality, which relates to identifying and prioritizing the most relevant sustainability topics, taking into account the effect each topic has on an organization and its stakeholders. AA1000AP (2018) explains that a material topic is a topic that will substantively influence and impact the assessments, decisions, actions, and performance of an organization and/or its stakeholders in the short, medium, and/or long term.
• Inclusivity: According to AA1000AP (2018), people should have a say in the decisions that impact them and this means that organizations need to embrace the principle of inclusivity by actively identifying stakeholders and enabling their participation in establishing the organization’s material sustainability topics and developing a strategic response to them. Inclusive organizations accept their accountability to those on whom they have an impact and to those who have an impact on them.
• Responsiveness: AA1000AP (2018) describes responsiveness as an organization’s timely and relevant reaction to material sustainability topics and their related impacts. Organizations should be prepared to act transparently on these topics and impacts and demonstrate responsiveness through their decisions, actions, and performance, as well as their communications with stakeholders.
British Standard on Sustainability Management, BS 8900
The British Standard on Sustainability Management, referred to as “BS 8900,” was first published in May 2006 by BSI (www.bsigroup.com) for use in independently auditing, verifying, and certifying an organization’s sustainable development strategy and a fully revised version was issued in August 2013. Part I of BS 8900 contains guidance on principles of sustainable development such as inclusivity, integrity, stewardship, and transparency and how those principles can be embedded in organizations. Part II of BS 8900 sets out the framework for assessing an organization’s approach to sustainable development. The drafters of BS 8900 emphasized that it was not designed to duplicate existing management systems specifications, such as ISO 9001 or ISO 14001, but was intended to optimize the value of existing approaches. BS 8900 was developed for the consultants and managers responsible for sustainability within an organization, including the CEO and senior executives responsible for sustainability, compliance, corporate social responsibility, and environment.
Committee on Sustainability Assessment
The Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) (thecosa.org) is a neutral, nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering innovative and pragmatic systems that accelerate sustainability. COSA uses the principles of collaboration and partnership to identify solid standardized metrics about what is “sustainable” in order to provide sustainability intelligence and advance sustainability by providing organizations, governments, and businesses with the ability to speak a common sustainability “language” of accountability in the same way that we have generally accepted accounting principles to understand finance. COSA has developed and field-tested state-of-the-art metrics for economic, social, and environmental indicators in collaboration with more than 60 global partners and hundreds of institutions and experts. COSA metrics are benchmarked to dozens of international norms and accords including the Sustainable Development Goals, multilateral guidelines, international agreements, and normative references. Corporations, financial institutions, and government agencies use COSA metrics and technologies to improve services and target smarter investments, and COSA has emerged as a trusted source for sustainability intelligence and tools that are aligned with dozens of international accords. COSA’s experience began with coffee, the world’s most economically important agricultural commodity, and now includes cocoa, cotton, sugar, tea, field crops, fruit and food crops. COSA works primarily in developing countries and across global agri-food supply chains.18
ISO 9001
ISO 9001 is one of the best known and widely used standards of the ISO and provides a structure (i.e., a quality management system (QMS)) to help organizations develop products and services that consistently ensure customer satisfaction and continuously improve their products, services, and process. Quality refers to all those features of a product or service that are required by the customer. Quality management means what an organization does to ensure that its products or services satisfy the customer’s quality requirements and comply with any regulations applicable to those products or services. Quality management also means what the organization does to enhance customer satisfaction and achieve continual improvement of its performance. ISO 9001 gives the requirements for what the organization must do to manage processes affecting the quality of its final products and services; however, ISO 9001 is not a product or service standard, nor does it specify what the objectives of the organization should be with respect to “quality” or “meeting customer requirements,” each of which must be defined by organizations on their own.
ISO 14001
ISO 14001 is an internationally agreed standard developed by ISO that sets out the requirements for a structure (i.e., an environmental management system (EMS)) to help organizations manage and minimize their environmental impacts, conform to applicable legal requirements, and improve their environmental performance through more efficient use of resources and reduction of waste, thereby gaining a competitive advantage and the trust of stakeholders. ISO 14001, which was recently revised effective in 2015, is suitable for organizations of all types and sizes, be they private, not-for-profit or governmental, and requires that an organization consider all environmental issues relevant to its operations, such as air pollution, water and sewage issues, waste management, soil contamination, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and resource use and efficiency. While an EMS may be adopted as a standalone system, it is often added to an existing management system (e.g., a system based on quality, such as ISO 9001 described earlier).
ISO 26000
ISO 26000:2010 provides guidance to all types of organizations, regardless of their size or location, on concepts, terms, and definitions related to social responsibility; the background, trends and characteristics of social responsibility; principles and practices relating to social responsibility; the core subjects and issues of social responsibility; integrating, implementing, and promoting socially responsible behavior throughout the organization and, through its policies and practices, within its sphere of influence; identifying and engaging with stakeholders; and communicating commitments, performance, and other information related to social responsibility. ISO 26000 defines “social responsibility” as the responsibility of an organization for the impacts of its decisions and activities (i.e., products, services, and processes) on society and the environment through transparent and ethical behavior that contributes to sustainable development, including the health and welfare of society; takes into account the expectations of stakeholders; is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behavior, and is integrated throughout the organization and practiced in its relationships, which includes all of the organization’s activities within its sphere of influence (i.e., relationships through which the organization has the ability to affect the decisions or activities of others).
The specific clauses of ISO 26000 can be described as follows:
Clause title, Clause n°, Description of clause contents
• Clause 1 defines the scope of ISO 26000 and identifies certain limitations and exclusions.
• Clause 2 identifies and provides the definition of key terms that are of fundamental importance for understanding social responsibility and for using ISO 26000.
• Clause 3 describes the important factors and conditions that have influenced the development of social responsibility and that continue to affect its nature and practice. It also describes the concept of social responsibility itself: what it means and how it applies to organizations. The clause includes guidance for small and medium-sized organizations on the use of ISO 26000.
• Clause 4 introduces and explains the principles of social responsibility: accountability, transparency, ethical behavior, respect for stakeholder interests, respect for the rule of law, respect for international norms of behavior, and respect for human rights.
• Clause 5 addresses two practices of social responsibility: an organization’s recognition of its social responsibility, and its identification of, and engagement with, its stakeholders. It provides guidance on the relationship between an organization, its stakeholders and society, on recognizing the core subjects and issues of social responsibility, and on an organization’s sphere of influence.
• Clause 6 explains the core subjects and associated issues relating to social responsibility including organizational governance, human rights, labor practices, the environment, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and community involvement and development. For each core subject, information is provided on its scope, including key issues; its relationship to social responsibility; related principles and considerations; and related actions and expectations.
• Clause 7 provides guidance on putting social responsibility into practice in an organization. This includes understanding the social responsibility of an organization, integrating social responsibility throughout an organization, communication related to social responsibility, improving the credibility of an organization regarding social responsibility, reviewing progress, and improving performance and evaluating voluntary initiatives for social responsibility. This involves making social responsibility integral to its policies, organizational culture, strategies and operations; building internal competency for social responsibility; undertaking internal and external communication on social responsibility; and regularly reviewing these actions and practices related to social responsibility.
ISO 26000:2010 is intended to assist organizations in contributing to sustainable development; however, although it draws on principles included in the management systems developed by the ISO it is not itself a management system standard and is not intended or appropriate for certification purposes or regulatory or contractual use.19 Instead, ISO 26000:2010 sets out certain core principles and explains the core subjects and associated issues relating to social responsibility including organizational governance, human rights, labor practices, the environment, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and community involvement and development. For each core subject, information is provided on its scope, including key issues; its relationship to social responsibility; related principles and considerations; and related actions and expectations. For example, with respect to labor practices, one of the core subjects, organizations are reminded to integrate consideration of the following issues into their policies, organizational culture, strategies, and operations: employment and employment relationships; conditions of work and social protection; social dialogue; health and safety at work; and human development and training in the workplace.20
The seven principles of ISO 26000:2010 are intended to establish the underlying framework for socially responsible decision making and link each user of ISO 26000:2010 to a global community of those who share the following principles:
• Accountability: Accountability is the state of being answerable for decisions and activities to the organization’s governing bodies, legal authorities and, more broadly, its stakeholders (i.e., those who are affected by the actions of the organization)
• Transparency: Transparency is openness about decisions and activities that affect society, the economy and the environment, and willingness to communicate these in a clear, accurate, timely, honest, and complete manner.
• Ethical Behavior: Ethical behavior involves deciding on the right course of action, day to day, and is defined as “behavior that is in accordance with accepted principles of right or good conduct in the context of a particular situation.”
• Respect for Stakeholder Interests: Respect for stakeholder interests requires identifying groups of stakeholders (i.e., those who are affected by the decisions and actions of the organization), understanding the impact of the organization’s decisions and actions on those stakeholders, and responding to their concerns, although this does not mean that stakeholders should be allowed to make decisions for the organization.
• Respect for the Rule of Law: In the context of social responsibility, respect for the rule of law means that an organization complies with all applicable laws and regulations, even if they are not adequately enforced.
• Respect for International Norms of Behavior: In situations where the law or its implementation does not provide for adequate environmental or social safeguards, an organization should strive to respect, as a minimum, international norms of behavior, which are derived from customary international law, generally accepted principles of international law, or intergovernmental agreements that are universally or nearly universally recognized.
• Respect for Human Rights: Organizations should identify the vulnerable populations among its stakeholders and work to ensure their fair treatment including, in situations where human rights are not protected, taking steps to respect human rights and avoid taking advantage of these situations.
OHSAS 18001: Occupational Health and Safety Management
BS OHSAS 18001 sets out the minimum requirements for occupational health and safety management best practice and provides a framework for an occupational health and safety management system that can be used to put in place the policies, procedures, and controls needed for an organization to achieve the best possible working conditions and workplace health and safety, aligned to internationally recognized best practice.
Social Accountability International
Social Accountability International (SAI) (sa-intl.org) is a global NGO advancing human rights at work driven by diverse perspectives to navigating evolving labor issues. SAI’s vision is of decent work everywhere, sustained by an understanding that socially responsible workplaces benefit business while securing fundamental human rights. SAI empowers workers and managers at all levels of businesses and supply chains, using its multiindustry SA8000® Standard, which is the leading social certification standard for factories and organizations across the globe. SA8000 measures social performance in eight areas important to social accountability in workplaces (i.e., child labor, forced or compulsory labor, health and safety, freedom of association and right to collective bargaining, discrimination, disciplinary practices, working hours and remuneration), anchored by a management system element that drives continuous improvement in all areas of the Standard. The Standard reflects labor provisions contained within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ILO conventions, and also respects, complements and supports national labor laws around the world. As of September 2019, the Standard was being used in over 4,200 factories across 62 countries and 56 industries and was helping secure ethical working conditions for over two million workers.21
In addition to publishing SA8000 and supporting documents, SAI offers a wide selection of resources to help organizations maintain and continually improve their social performance, including capacity building, stakeholder engagement, collaboration between buyers and suppliers, and the development of tools to ensure continued improvement. SAI views independent accredited certification to the SA8000® Standard as a critical element contributing to the company’s broader objectives of improving global labor conditions. SAI is also one of the world’s leading social compliance training organizations, having provided training to over 30,000 people, including factory and farm managers, workers, brand compliance officers, auditors, labor inspectors, trade union representatives, and other worker rights advocates.
1 For further discussion, see Gutterman, A. 2020. Sustainability Reporting and Communications. New York, NY: Business Expert Press, and Gutterman, A. 2020. Sustainability Management. New York, NY: Routledge.
2 Hohnen, P., (Author) and J. Potts, ed. 2007. Corporate Social Responsibility: An Implementation Guide for Business, 67. Winnipeg, Canada: International Institute for Sustainable Development.
3 Companies using the Future-Fit business goals recommended by the Future-Fit Business Network can adopt the “fitness criteria” associated with each of the goals. See the discussion of the Future-Fit business goals in Future-Fit Business Framework, Part 1: Concepts, Principles and Goals (Future-Fit Foundation, Release 1, May 2016), 25, FutureFitBusiness.org.
4 Adapted from a description of the evolution of the Global Reporting Initiative included in Mink, K. 2012. The Effects of Organizational Structure on Sustainability Report Compliance, 12–13. Purdue University College of Technology Masters’ Thesis, Available at http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/techmasters/62
5 For detailed discussion of the GRI Standards, see Gutterman, A. 2020. Sustainability Reporting and Communications. New York, NY: Business Expert Press.
6 Carrots & Sticks: Global Trends in Sustainability Reporting Regulation and Policy (KPMG International, the Global Research Initiative (GRI), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa, 2016), available at www.carrotsandsticks.net, 25.
7 DeSimone, P. 2014. Board Oversight of Sustainability Issues: A Study of the S&P 500. IRRC Institute, 7.
8 The International <IR> Framework (International Integrated Reporting Council, December 2013).
9 Id. at 5.
10 Id.
11 Carrots & Sticks: Global Trends in Sustainability Reporting Regulation and Policy (KPMG International, the Global Research Initiative (GRI), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa, 2016), available at www.carrotsandsticks.net, 25.
12 For a detailed discussion of the activities of the SASB, see Gutterman, A. 2020. Sustainability Reporting and Communications. New York, NY: Business Expert Press.
13 See International Organization for Standardization, ISO 26000 Guidance on Social Responsibility: Discovering ISO 26000 (2014) and Handbook for Implementers of ISO 26000, Global Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility by Small and Medium Sized Businesses (Middlebury VT: ECOLOGIA, 2011).
14 See http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/eresources/9781856176842/Requirement_checklist.pdf
15 The AA1000 AccountAbility Assurance Standard (2008) provides a methodology for use by sustainability professionals for sustainability-related assurance engagements to evaluate the nature and extent to which an organization adheres to the AccountAbility Principles. Separate Guidance notes for assurance providers, reporting organizations, and stakeholders on AA1000AS (2008) are available for download on the AccountAbility website.
16 For further discussion of AA1000SES (2015), see A. Gutterman, Stakeholders and Stakeholder Engagement (Oakland CA: Sustainable Entrepreneurship Project, 2019) available at www.seproject.org.
17 The descriptions of the four principles are adapted from AA1000 AccountAbility Principles (2018), 13 and 30.
18 For further discussion of COSA tools and methodology, see Giovannucci, D., O. von Hagen, and J. Wozniak. 2014. “Corporate Social Responsibility and the Role of Voluntary Sustainability Standards.” In Voluntary Standards Systems, eds. Schmitz-Hoffmann, et al., 359, 375–381 Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
19 See International Organization for Standardization, ISO 26000 Guidance on Social Responsibility: Discovering ISO 26000 (2014) and Handbook for Implementers of ISO 26000, Global Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility by Small and Medium Sized Businesses (Middlebury, VT: ECOLOGIA, 2011).
20 ISO 26000 Guidance on Social Responsibility: Discovering ISO 26000 (International Organization for Standardization, 2014) and Handbook for Implementers of ISO 26000, Global Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility by Small and Medium Sized Businesses (Middlebury, VT: ECOLOGIA, 2011). The discussion of ISO 26000 in this section is adapted from ISO 26000 Basic Training Manual (ISO 26000 Post Publication Organization, March 15, 2016). ISO 26000 is available for purchase from ISO webstore at the ISO website (www.iso.org) and general information about ISO 26000 can be obtained at www.iso.org/sr
21 Current information on certification and accreditation can be obtained at http://saasaccreditation.org/