Executive summary on social responsibility

ISO’s series of executive summaries on high profile aspects of its work has a new addition – on the future ISO 26000 standard providing voluntary guidance on social responsibility (SR). ISO and social responsibility, which is available free of charge on ISO’s Web site and as a four-page brochure, joins similar documents: ISO in brief, ISO and the consumer and ISO and conformity assessment.

ISO and social responsibility points out that ISO 26000 will:

• be for organizations of all types in both public and private sectors, in developed and developing countries;
• add value to SR existing work by:
  • developing an international consensus on what SR means and the SR issues that organizations need to address,
  • providing guidelines on translating principles into effective actions, and
  • distilling the best practice that has already evolved and disseminating it worldwide for the good of the international community.

  The new brochure underlines that ISO 26000 will provide guidelines, not requirements and will not, therefore, be for use as a certification standard like ISO 9001:2000 (quality management) and ISO 14001:2004 (environmental management).

ISO/IEC standard benchmarks provision of software asset management

A new ISO and IEC standard for managing software assets is expected to result in cost savings for users, whether large or small enterprises, as well as improved efficiency, risk management and customer (internal and external) satisfaction.ISO/IEC 19770-1:2006, Information technology - Software asset management - Part 1: Processes will enable organizations to benchmark their capability in delivering managed services, measuring service levels and assessing performance.

New ISO International Standard for the market research industry

Market research is now a global industry and the cross-border trade in this activity will be facilitated by ISO 20252 which standardizes the requirements for market research worldwide, encouraging consistency and transparency in the way surveys are carried out, and confidence in their results and in their providers.

Business and society rely heavily on market research, with users including companies, governments, research institutes, consumer associations, universities, marketing and advertising agencies. In its various forms, market research contributes to many aspects of modern life, from the products and services we buy to the way we vote and to our behaviour as consumers and citizens.

ISO 20252:2006, Market, opinion and social research – Vocabulary and service requirements, applies the principles of ISO’s quality management standards (specifically ISO 9000:2000, Quality management systems – Fundamentals and vocabulary) to market, opinion and social research and harmonizes at the international level the requirements of the various national standards and industry codes that already exist for the sector.

ISO and IEC approve OpenDocument OASIS standard

The OpenDocument Format OASIS standard that enables users of varying office suites to exchange documents freely with one another has just been approved for release as an ISO and IEC International Standard.OpenDocument, submitted by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), was balloted as an International Standard in ISO/IEC's Joint Technical Committee 1 on Information Technology. The standard has been given the designation, ISO/IEC 26300.

The ISO Café revamps its menu

ISO has expanded the “menu” of its virtual The ISO Café whose visitors can explore the world of ISO standards and the benefits they provide in concise and digestible language. So, get comfortable and discover some of the new ISO work and updated standards that ISO has published over the past year in the areas of:

• Climate change
• Education: e-learning, training and education
• Exhibitions
• Food safety management
• Information technology:
  • Information security management
  • IT service management
  • Longer lasting PDFs
• Nanotechnologies
• Personal financial planning
• Quality management: education sector
• Radio frequency identification (RFID)
• Records management
• Road vehicles: Side impact dummy (WorldSID)
• Social responsibility
• Sports: scuba diving
• Supply chain security management

• Help for small businesses to implement ISO management system standards
• ISO 22005 to systemize traceability of food and feed
• ISO/IEC standard for assessing quality of e-learning
  

• Do consumers really care about ISO 9001 certification?
• World's biggest oil company uses ISO 9001:2000 in giant SAP roll-out
• Globalization and ISO 14001
• ISO 14000 in China
• How to implement an ISO/IEC 27001 information security management system

Standards for Services

• Focus on Germany

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