The world’s first stakeholder engagement standard has been established by the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability.
The AA1000SES standard provides a set of benchmarks against which
companies can judge whether they are adequately assessing stakeholders’
views on their social and environmental performance.
Alan Knight, Isea’s head of standards, said it had been produced to
offer ‘coherent and practical guidance for designing, implementing and
assuring the quality of stakeholder engagements’ and is for the use not
only of companies but also civil society, labour organizations and
public agencies.
Those seeking to comply with the standard should set up a methodology
to identify their stakeholders, establish a strategy to engage with
them, map out stakeholders’ key concerns, build these into business
operations, and then report on the entire process. Isea, also known as
AccountAbility, says the initial form of the standard is an ‘exposure
draft’ that will be modified in response to feedback during the next
year.
Isea has also been involved in developing a new British Standards
Institution standard on sustainability management, which was produced
in draft form last month and has been named BS8900. Consultation on the
draft will run until 31 December.
At the same time progress is being made on developing an ISO standard
on CSR – now named ISO26000 and due in 2008. Members of the
International Standards Organization’s Working Group on Social
Responsibility were to meet again late last month.
