Design of a sustainability management system that complies with international standards

A sustainability management system that meets the main international standards in this area was developed in the “Promotion of Sustainability Management in Latin America” project.    

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To date, there is no internationally recognized standard for sustainability management. Companies that are dealing with this topic for the first time are confronted with a confusing range of guiding principles, guidelines and management standards for individual topics.

The management system developed in the project covers the essential organisational requirements of the following frameworks:

• OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct
• UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
• UN Sustainable Development Goals
• Equator Principles
• ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems
• ISO 26000  Guidance on Social Responsibility
• SGE 21: Sistema de Gestión Ética y Socialmente Responsable

To identify the key elements of sustainability management, these and other frameworks (e.g. GRI) were systematically compared, an expert survey conducted and discussed in several workshops with board members and sustainability managers from Chile and Mexico.

The result is a brief guideline for companies,  that is accompanied by a collection of practical examples. The procedure, the survey results and information on the initial situation in Mexico, Chile and Germany are described in the scientific study.