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Some of us can't even decide on whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the best term for what we are interested in and report on. So, attempting to standardise the concept into an internationally recognised benchmark was always going to be dotted with pitfalls.
Last year, the Geneva-based International Standards Organisation (ISO) moved into the field of the CSR. Not surprisingly the process is prompting some tricky questions. Some are being asked by the ISO itself.
Trouble brewing: Even before the first meeting, the process is under fire. An undated and unsigned letter viewed by Ethical Corporation in February carrying the name of James Howard, a director of the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, says the confederations wants "to provide early notice of what may become a global trade union campaign directed at the ISO".
The letter, addressed to the ICFTU's national union members, outlines what it calls "negative developments" at the ISO regarding its attempts to devise a global CSR standard.
The ICFTU argues that recommended standards put to the ISO technical management board, which oversees all new standard processes, by the social responsibility advisory committee have been watered down.
Two broad claims are made. First, the ISO -- as a private organisation -0- disagrees that is has no legitimacy to compete with government and inter-governmental bodies on social standards. Second, there will be no ongoing review process, as envisaged by the advisory group, to ensure meaningful stakeholder participation and input.
The letter calls on all union bodies around the world to tell the ICFTU of any developments and the extent to which national ISO member organisations are liaising with them on the social responsibility standard. It also confirms "we support the call by the International Labour Organisation Governing Body for the ISO to stop the process that it has begun".
Catching water in a net: The ICFTU letter underlines what the ISO already knew: entering the CSR standards field means carrying a minesweeper. To its credit, it has canvassed a number of these potential problems in the advisory group's extensive 93-page working report, published in April last year.
The organisation admits that the CSR is a different issue for a body used to dealing with technical standards and test methods for products. Further, the ISO notes itself that it may be engaging in a process that some may see as gutting the very basis of the CSR.
Whether the organisation covers these bases in what appears to be an exhaustive process leading to publication of the standard in 2008 remains to be seen.
A further issue, also raised by the ISO itself, is that there is a legitimacy question to deal with, given the disparate actors willing to take the plunge. Who should have the ultimate role in defining a CSR standard?
Whether the ISO has the stakeholder support needed for such legitimacy looks questionable, as the ICFTU letter suggests.
The ISO acknowledges concerns. Its working report says the move into the CSR "involves taking positions on social issues", and adds: "ISO itself does not possess such structures." The body has sought to incorporate the views of a wide range of stakeholder groups of all shades to provide this missing component and, hopefully, to buy some legitimacy.
ISO: aye, so what? At first glance this looks unwieldy but not impossible. Yet, for groups like the ICFTU and the ILO, the ISO's pretensions to act as a kind of global interface to give, in the ISO's own words, "marginalised voices a platform on which to participate" do not sit well with its cultural foundations. That's a job for governments and government bodies like the United Nations, they say, not a private institution.
What is guaranteed is that the ISO process, which will be the subject of a major meeting in Brazil this month, will be convoluted. Pressure will be brought on the ISO to drop its foray into corporate social responsibility and, if it pushes on, legitimacy will be hard won, if won at all. (Source: www.ethicalcorp.com)
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