The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) encourages relevant stakeholders to attend virtual workshops on July 8 and July 10 to contribute to the development of ISO International Workshop Agreement (IWA) 48 - Framework for Implementing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Principles.
The British Standards Institution (BSI), in collaboration with the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT) and Standards Council of Canada (SCC), will host the workshops.
According to the IWA proposal, ESG, when considered in a holistic framework that represents not just climate action and conformity but also key principles of social inclusion and sound governance, can represent a cultural shift across a broad spectrum of users. Embedding a culture of ESG can add real value to businesses, governments, investors, and consumers.
To that end, as the proposal asserts, the IWA will provide a high-level framework and set of principles to address how to implement and embed ESG within the culture of an organization to support management of ESG performance, and to support measurement and reporting under existing frameworks to enable consistency, comparability, and reliability of ESG reporting and practices globally. Additionally, while the IWA can be used by all organizations in all sectors, it is most relevant to SMEs and organizations in developing countries.
Developing the IWA via workshops will allow for the opportunity to involve a wide range of stakeholders and partners in the development process beyond those currently in the ISO ecosystem, including those responsible for existing and evolving voluntary and regulatory reporting and disclosure frameworks.
The first two workshops, on July 8 and July 10, will focus on the draft IWA 48 and stakeholder comments received. They are not duplicate sessions; stakeholders are requested to attend both. Register for the sessions and access more information via the IWA proposal.
Additional international workshops will take place between July and September 2024.
What is an IWA?
An IWA is a type of document that is developed with direct participation of stakeholders outside of the traditional ISO country representation to enable players to negotiate an open workshop environment. After the IWA workshop, text will be edited and published. A proposal to hold an ISO workshop for the purpose of developing one or more IWA on a particular subject may come from any source, including ISO member bodies, liaison organizations, corporate bodies, etc.
