You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap: A case-study of ISO 26000 on social responsibility

This chapter discusses the cost-benefit of the ‘International Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility – ISO 26000’. An analysis of the rationale for embarking on this project, the approach used by ISO, and the factors that influenced decision-making in the process of developing this guidance standard exemplifies the challenges ISO faces as far as public interest-friendly standards are concerned. A critical stance is taken as to the contribution of ISO 26000, and standardizing social responsibility more generally, to advancing the sustainability agenda and the extent to which it is appropriate for ISO to be involved in this. The argument holds that the ISO 26000 project was an overly costly enterprise for that what it delivered and efforts could have been more efficiently spent elsewhere, on alternative processes of SR governance that do make companies’ clock tick, including selective litigation.