The Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability (ISEA) launched AA1000 in November 1999. It is the first international standard for corporate responsibility and stakeholder management.

The preliminary version was based on pilots in various organisations where social and ethical responsibility had been integrated in the strategic planning and management.

Organisations using and supporting the standard are - amongst others - the multinationals Shell International (UK), Novo Nordisk (Denmark) and British American Tobacco BAT (UK). The Body Shop Plc. (UK), Van Cityh Credit Union (CA) and Co-operative Bank (both UK) were among the first to publish social reports entirely according to the AA1000 standard.

ISEA, with its offices in London (UK), has had a fundamental role in organising and collecting the various organisational experiences resulting from AA1000. Currently, ISEA is the governing body of the standard and trains AA1000 consultants and assurance providers.

Recently, the first experiences have been evaluated and the standard has been revised. It now has 5 individual modules forming together the AA1000 Series (AA1000S).

The organisation (corporate, non-profit or governmental) adopting AA1000 has to follow a continuous cycle of activities. The main steps are definition and re-definition of values, development of ethical and social performance targets and evaluation and communication of performance according to the previously set targets.

In the AA1000 process, stakeholder involvement is crucial. In other words, the organisation should use its leadership to facilitate and expand its dialogue with employees, consumers, suppliers, communities, the government, environmental activists, shareholders and others.

It is systematic stakeholder involvement that makes the company's accountability information more reliable.

The following eight specific quality principles, grouped according to their area of reference, make up of AA1000:

Scope and nature of the process:

• Completeness
• Materiality
• Regularity and timeliness

Meaningfulness of information:

• Quality assurance of data
• Acessibility
• Information quality

Management of the process on a on-going basis:

• Embeddedness
• Continuous improvement

The process itself follows a defined activity cycle with 5 elements:

1. Planning
2. Accounting
3. Auditing and Reporting
4. Embedding
5. Stakeholder Dialogue

Elements 4 and 5 are the core of the AA1000 process. Stakeholder inclusion is a characteristic element which distinguishes AA1000 from other management systems.

Reporting is important within the process. AA1000 bases its reporting standard entirely on the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. AA1000 has been an essential contributor to the development of GRI.

Improvement of social performance shown in increased confidence, commitment, loyalty and productivity happens when corporate social responsibility is put into practice: to include and consider the vision and opinions of all groups that are involved or affected by the companies activities when making strategic decisions.

Existing experiences show a huge variety in the scope and invested resources. There are no general rules to define the costs and time that need to be invested in the process. Both depend on the situation of each company. ISEA released numbers that show investments between 10.000 USD up to 750.000 USD, depending on the size of the company.

Please see the BSD document with general information on the implementation of AA1000 (in *.pdf).

Visit the site of ISEA: www.accountability.org.uk