Last week, the new ISO 26000 standard was officially published. Here is its brief overview:

It is intended to promote common understanding in the field of social responsibility, and to complement other instruments and initiatives for social responsibility

This new standard will provide guidance for organizations that voluntarily want to analyze and strengthen their social responsibility (including, but not limited to, working conditions). It is more comprehensive than the SA 8000 standard, which is currently widely used for social compliance audits of factories in China and other Asian countries.

Of course, it is tempting for certification agencies to base some new services on this standard, the same way they have been using the ISO 9000 series. The ISO organization will discourage it, though:

ISO 26000:2010 is not a management system standard. It is not intended or appropriate for certification purposes or regulatory or contractual use. Any offer to certify, or claims to be certified, to ISO 26000 would be a misrepresentation of the intent and purpose and a misuse of ISO 26000:2010. As ISO 26000:2010 does not contain requirements, any such certification would not be a demonstration of conformity with ISO 26000:2010.

So, a factory cannot be “ISO 26000 certified”. But can social compliance audits be based loosely on this new standard (in addition to the local country’s regulations)? I think so. This is a more comprehensive standard, which will probably replace SA 8000.

I will be curious to see how fast the mega-retailers adopt this new standard. Keeping the “old” SA 8000 checklists can be positive to show suppliers a consistency in objectives.