ISO 26000

The International Organization for Standardization has decided to launch the development of an International Standard providing guidelines for social responsibility (SR) named ISO 26000 or simply ISO SR and is expected to be released by the end of 2010. Considering that ArcelorMittal Tubarão cares for the education for Sustainability, the company participates in this project trying to establish an exchange of knowledge and experiences through the interaction with other participants. With a uniform language, it is possible for each company to fulfil their role of bringing benefit to the world.

This is a regulation of guidelines and not certification; it can be applied to any sort of organization such as companies, government, NGOs, among others; it will be built based on existing initiatives and will not have a management system characteristic.

A group of Social Responsibility Work was formed to prepare ISO 26000 comprising more than 360 experts and observers from more than 60 countries. In this process, representatives of several categories of stakeholders - consumers, companies, governments, workers, NGOs, services, support, research and others - meet to debate the main trends and search for a consensual future for Social Responsibility in the World.

For the first time the leadership of such process is under the joint leadership of a developing country - Brazil (coordinated by ABNT) - and a developed country, Sweden (SIS, Swedish Standards Institute). Also participating in the process are the D-liaison organizations, which are renowned international networks. The Ethos and UniEthos institute are officially registered in the ISO 26000 development process as members of the D-liaison Forum of Corporate and Inter-American Social Responsibility Network respectively.

The Ethos and UniEthos Institute developed the Ethos Work Group for ISSO 26000, as an initiative to allow the member companies to get involved in the development of ISO 26000. The idea is to contribute to the qualification of companies in emerging themes in the process of preparing the regulation, allowing a vision of the trends of the Social Responsibility movement in the world and build a space to exchange information and learn, which help the Ethos and UniEthos Institute in its contribution to the regulation.

The companies comprising the WG Ethos - ISO 26000 take part in presential meetings receive electronic bulletins and have access to a virtual platform exclusive of the Group. In these activities they discuss the preparation of the future regulation in debates that cover from themes like human rights, work practices and environment to issues regarding Social Responsibility in corporate management.

More than 70 companies associated to Ethos are part of WG Ethos - ISO 26000 and ArcelorMittal Tubarão is one of the sponsors and participants of this innovative and strategic project reinforcing its commitment to Social Responsibility and Sustainability.

The text of the regulation was approved at the end of 2009 and it is forecast to be published by the end of 2010.

For more information on ISO 26000, access the official Social Responsibility ISO website: www.iso.org/sr.

An ISO regulation is a document

ISO standard is a document established by consensus and approved by a recognized body that provides for common and repeated use, rules guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context.