Posted By Halina Ward
on 22 May, 2010
I’ve just returned from the final session of the ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) International Working Group on Social Responsibility. The ‘SR’ Working Group has been driving efforts to develop a consensus-based, globally applicable, voluntary international guidance standard on social responsibility for organisations of all sizes, sectors, and locations.
The draft International Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility has gradually been taking shape over the past five years. ISO is a private nongovernmental body, headquartered in Geneva. And it is also the world’s largest developer of international standards.
The final plenary of the working group in Copenhagen yesterday marked a …
Posted By Halina Ward
on 12 May, 2010
I’ve been happily distracted, in all the general election and coalition mayhem and the musings on the implications of Coalition and hung parliaments for sustainable development.. by a visit the Conservation Economy blog. Jon Alexander, one of its founders, told me about it at our event on Mobilising Democracy to Tackle Climate Change. It’s a space “to provoke a fundamental questioning of the role of marketing, advertising and the communications industries in driving consumption”. Hard-core stuff indeed.
In a 29th April 2010 post, Jon draws a key distinction between consumption and Consumerism. And elsewhere on this blog…
Posted By Halina Ward
on 2 May, 2010
The interface between local citizen-led action and representative democracy is right at the cutting edge of sustainable development.
There has already been a lot of work on community empowerment in relation to existing processes of local government (this is ‘inside-out’ thinking; mostly motivated by the need to reinvigorate existing processes of representative democracy).
‘Outside-in’ thinking would mean working with community groups that focus on sustainable development issues. It would mean a bottom-up process of thinking about how community organising could help democracy to work for sustainable development.
There are also wider questions about how community groups self-organise on issues related …
Category: democratisation, local democracy
Tags: community empowerment, consultation, direct democracy, duty to involve, Infrastructure Planning Commission, local government, Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act, Regional Development Authorities, representative democracy, Sustainable Communities Act, Transition Towns
