ISO 26000

Social Responsibility

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What is Social Responsibility?

Social responsibility is an organisation’s commitment to making ethical and transparent decisions that consider social and environmental impacts and being accountable for them. Its purpose is to maximise your organisation’s contribution to sustainable development.

ISO 26000 offers a flexible, internationally recognised framework that helps organisations integrate social responsibility into their strategies, operations and culture. It is built around seven core principles that guide ethical and responsible behaviour across social, environmental and economic context. By aligning with ISO 26000, organisations can also demonstrate their support for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reinforcing their global commitment to sustainability.

Becoming a socially responsible organisation doesn’t have to be complex. Teamwork can help you review how your current practices align with the principles of ISO 26000 and advise you how to fill any gaps and continually improve.

How it can make a difference to your organisation

Enhanced Reputation

Enhance your reputation, showing your commitment to social responsibility and strengthening stakeholder trust with ISO 26000

Continual improvement

Establish a framework to identify key performance indicators and monitor progress, driving continual improvement of your social responsibility practices

Competitive Advantage

Differentiate your organisation in the marketplace and gain a competitive edge by appealing to socially conscious stakeholders

Risk Mitigation

Proactively manage social, environmental and ethical risks, reducing the likelihood of legal, financial and reputational harm

International recognition

Demonstrate your commitment to social responsibility on a global scale, by adopting an internationally recognised standard

Our ISO 26000 process

Gap analysis

Conduct a gap analysis to compare current practices with ISO 26000 guidelines and develop a plan to address identified gaps and set objectives for improvement

ISO 26000 Gap analysis

Implement

Implement the action plan by embedding social responsibility practices into your organisation’s strategy, processes and day-to-day operations

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Monitoring and Reporting

Monitor the effectiveness of your social responsibility initiatives using key performance indicators and report on progress to ensure transparency and drive continual improvement

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Improvement

We help you to maintain and improve your practices to ensure continued improvement

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Why choose Teamwork IMS?

Experienced Professionals

Since 2007, Teamwork has been solving compliance challenges for a huge range of organisations, from SMEs to large international corporates. Our team of professionals includes CISSP, PCI Security Standards Council QSA, MBCI, GDPR, PISEP, ESOS, NEBOSH and CMIOSH qualified consultants.

Multi-disciplinary team

Our knowledge and experience across a broad base of management and technical Standards make us uniquely equipped to help organisations to address their social responsibilities and align these with other Sustainability related requirements.

Part of your business

Our success has been firmly based on two key principles: the ability of Teamwork consultants to look beyond the standard in question and identify, define and align with the real business drivers of our clients and our innate ability to become one with our client’s own management teams

Global credentials

We have developed and led UKAS-accredited ISO and other standards-based compliance and sustainability improvement programmes for private and public-sector organisations across an international client base

How can Teamwork help?

Becoming a socially responsible organisation doesn’t have to be complex. Teamwork IMS can guide you through the ISO 26000 framework – reviewing how your current practices align with its principles, identifying gaps and helping you take meaningful action.

Our sustainability experts work with you to:

– Integrate social responsibility into your core strategy and operations

– Ensure continual improvement through structured guidance

– Strengthen stakeholder trust through transparent communication

With our guidance, you can strengthen your sustainability performance, align with an internationally recognised standard and demonstrate a clear commitment to ethical and socially responsible conduct.

Related Standards

Frequently asked questions

What is social responsibility and sustainable development?

According to the Bruntland report (1987) “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

ISO 26000 defines social responsibility as the responsibility of an organisation for the impacts of its decisions and activities on society and the environment, through transparent and ethical behaviour that:

contributes to sustainable development, including health and the welfare of society;
takes into account the expectations of stakeholders;
is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behaviour ; and
is integrated throughout the organisation and practised in its relationships.

The ultimate aim is to contribute to sustainable development.

What are the seven principles of ISO 26000?

There are seven principles of social responsibility at the core of ISO 26000 guidance, these are:

Accountability: for impacts on society, the economy and the environment
Transparency: in decisions and activities that impact society and the environment
Ethical Behaviour: behave ethically and based on the values of honesty, equity and integrity
Respect for Stakeholder Interests: respect, consider and respond to the interests of stakeholders
Respect for the Rule of Law: accept that respect for the rule of law is mandatory
Respect for International Norms of Behaviour: respect international norms of behaviour, while adhering to the principle of respect for the rule of law
Respect for Human Rights: respect human rights and recognise both their importance and their universality

Teamwork can help you review your current practices to see how these align with the principles of ISO 26000 and advise you how to fill any gaps.

Can I get ISO 26000 certified?

ISO 26000 is a guidance standard rather than a certification standard. It provides clarity on what social responsibility means and helps translate this into effective actions through its seven principles, providing a framework for assessing an organisation’s commitment to sustainability and its overall performance.

You can communicate to your stakeholder’s alignment to the ISO 26000 standard through statements such as ‘using the ISO 26000 standard to integrate / implement social responsibility / socially responsible behaviour into the organisation’ or ‘Based on ISO 26000’.

Teamwork IMS will assess how your current practices align with ISO 26000, identify areas for improvement and provide expert guidance to help you embed responsible practices across your organisation. We’ll also support you in effectively communicating your progress to build trust and transparency with your stakeholders.

How do ISO 26000 and the Sustainable Development Goals align?

By aligning with ISO 26000, organisations can also demonstrate their support for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reinforcing their commitment to sustainability.

ISO 26000 offers a structured approach to integrating social responsibility, guided by the seven core principles. These align closely with the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), supporting global efforts to tackle challenges like climate change , poverty, inequality and justice by 2030.

For example, SDG 13: Climate action – Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

ISO 26000 highlights the requirement to respect and promote environmental principles, including an organisation’s environmental impacts caused by its activities. The guidance aims to improve an organisation’s performance and performance of others they can influence. It highlights the importance of mitigating an organisation’s environmental impact through areas such as preventing pollution, sustainable resource use, energy efficiency and emission reduction, which contribute directly to combatting climate change and it’s impacts.

Teamwork can help your organisation identify the most relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and effectively communicate how the ISO 26000 principles align with and support these SDGs.

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We practice what we preach

For a consultancy team who routinely manage compliance programmes for other organisations, progressing through our own certification process is always a valuable reminder of how the experience feels and we think that this contributes towards our efficient but sympathetic approach to consulting for others.

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