International Organization for Standardization (ISO) organized ISO 26000 international workshop. The theme of the workshop was the importance and implementation of ISO 26000:2010, Guidance for Social Responsibility, two years after its publication (1.11.2011).

Developing Country Workshop and Open Forum was held from 5 to 8 November 2012 in Geneva, Switzerland and was sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was represented by Tihomir Andjelic from the Institute for standardization of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

ISO Secretary-General Rob Steele opened the Developing Country Workshop.

120 participants from 70 developing countries were involved in the activities of the workshop (5 and 6 November 2012) that was focused on:

a) the exchange of experiences on good practices at the countries level and challenges that national standardization bodies and other stakeholders have to face in the promotion and implementation of ISO 26000

b) the presentation of different training methodologies for ISO 26000, and

c) defining the relationship between ISO 26000 and other ISO standards and the concept of sustainable development.

As a good example of regional practice project SR MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa) was represented. ISO implements this project in eight countries of the region in cooperation with the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), aiming to strengthen the capacity to implement the ISO 26000 in these countries through the establishment of expert groups/trainers and work with selected pilot organizations.

Second day of the workshop the host organized a visit to the ISO headquarters, where the workshop participants aquainted with ISO employees, as well as with the mode of its work.

In the activities of the Open Forum (7 and 8 November 2012) 300 representatives of the developing countries, other ISO members and interested parties (especially consultants in the social responsibility area and representatives of academic community) participated.

In a wide exchange of experiences on good practices in the implementation and promotion of ISO 26000 (especially between representatives of France, the Nordic Council, Switzerland, Canada, the U.S.A, consumer associations and individual representatives of economic sector), the Forum was focused on the challenges in implementation of standard, namely the main problems in this process recorded in the previous two years.

The most important debates were on following topics:

a) The level of understanding of the essence of standards, namely the difference between ISO 26000, which should be seen only as a guideline on social responsibility that recommends process and major issues that organizations should include in its functioning, and the best known ISO standards on quality management systems (QMS) that contain specific criteria and requirements which an organization needs to fulfill in order to receive a certificate.

b) The complexity of the document itself and its applicability to micro, small and medium enterprises, as 92% of companies in Europe belong to micro and small enterprises (up to 10 employees), and some representatives argued that such enterprises have no interest/capacity to fully implement ISO 26000.

c) The degree of recognition and usefulness of this standard and its relationship with other initiatives in the ​​social responsibility area, with a special emphasis on the fact that a voluntary standard can not and should not replace government role in stimulating social responsibility. The importance of including recommendations for the implementation of ISO 26000 by the European Commission in a reviewed EU strategy for CSR (2011-2014) was emphasized.

d) Justification of the idea to develop a new version of the standards intended to be certified.

e) Price of the standard: if the standard is free would its applicability increase.

f) Methods of reporting and verification of non-financial reports of organizations, where different methodologies developed by individual countries and associations were represented.

These examples of good practice show that the benefits from the implementation and integration of ISO 26000 in organizations are multiple: managing reputation, image and risk management, competitiveness and market positioning; recruiting new labor force, motivation and retention of employees; operative effectiveness; availability of capital and investments, better relationship with businesses, government, media, suppliers, peers, customers and the community in which the organization operates.

The message from this four-day conference is that ISO 26000 standard represents a concept where each type of organization knowingly and voluntarily seeks to positively affect its work, social and business environment.