Sustainable
business for organizations means not only providing products and services that
satisfy the customer, and doing so without jeopardizing the environment, but
also operating in a socially responsible manner. Pressure to do so comes from
customers, consumers, governments, associations and the public at large. At the
same time, farsighted organizational leaders recognize that lasting success
must be built on credible business practices and the prevention of such
activities as fraudulent accounting and labour exploitation. On the one hand,
there has been a number of high-level declarations of principle related to SR
and, on the other, there are many individual SR programmes and initiatives. The
challenge is how to put the principles into practice and how to implement SR
effectively and efficiently when even the understanding of what “ social
responsibility †means may vary from one programme to another. In addition,
previous initiatives have tended to focus on “corporate social responsibilityâ€,
while ISO 26000 provides SR guidance not only for business organizations, but
also for public sector organizations of all types. ISO’s expertise is in
developing harmonized international agreements based on double levels of
consensus – among the principal categories of stakeholder, and among countries
(ISO is a network of the national standards bodies of 163 countries). ISO 26000
distils a globally relevant understanding of what social responsibility is and
what organizations need to do to operate in a socially responsible way. The
perception and reality of an organization’s performance on social
responsibility can influence, among other things :
Competitive
advantage
Reputation
Ability
to attract and retain workers or members, customers, clients or users
Maintenance
of employees’ morale, commitment and productivity
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of investors, owners, donors, sponsors and the financial community
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