In January 2005 a Working Group was established within ISO, to develop an International Standard providing guidelines for social responsibility (SR). The guidance standard will be published in 2010 as ISO 26000 and be voluntary to use. The objective is to produce a guidance document, written in plain language that is understandable and usable by non-specialists, and not a specification document intended for third party certification.

The work is intended to add value to, and not replace, existing inter-governmental agreements with relevance to social responsibility, such as the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and those adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO). The standard should be usable for organizations of all sizes, in countries at every stage of development.

ISO is taking action to ensure that the standard will benefit from broad input by all those with a serious interest in social responsibility. This is being achieved by a balanced representation in the working group, of six designated stakeholder categories: industry, government, labour, consumers, nongovernmental organizations and others, in addition to geographical and gender-based balance.

According to the new work item proposal the standard should:

• assist organizations in addressing their social responsibilities while respecting cultural, societal, environmental and legal differences and economic development conditions
• provide practical guidance related to operationalizing social responsibility, identifying and engaging with stakeholders, and enhancing credibility of reports and claims made about social responsibility
• emphasise performance results and improvement
• increase confidence and satisfaction in organizations among their customers and other stakeholders
• be consistent with and not in conflict with existing documents, international treaties and conventions and existing ISO standards
• not be intended to reduce government's authority to address the social responsibility of organizations
• promote common terminology in the social responsibility field; and
• broaden awareness of social responsibility

The designation of the standard is ISO 26000 and the target date for publication is year 2010.