Ethical management of corporate systems

This paper opens with an analysis of the two main standards of the new revised ISO 9000 on quality systems and illustrates its integration with the requirements of the ISO 14001 standard, whose structure resembles that of the international OHSAS 18001 specification concerning safety management. With reference to the most important ILO conventions and ONU’s global principles of Corporate Social Responsibility, a framework is established of the main tools used by organizations for corporate social management, such as for example codes of conduct, social accounting and ethical certification. In addition, the paper discusses how the SA8000 standard, a precursor of some aspects of Vision 2000, can be considered a natural evolution of the latter, also given its affinity with the environmental and safety aspects. Finally, the paper illustrates the latest programs of application and the standards currently being developed for specific sectors, in the light of the current global situation of social certification.