ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the general social responsibility (SR) principles as specified in ISO 26000. Many NGOs, company associations that stimulate and promote SR and sustainable development, sectoral organisations and individual companies have formulated SR principles. In addition to the general SR principles there is a second category of principles to be found in ISO 26000. ISO 26000 provides and defines SR principles to guide users towards an organisation-specific SR policy. ISO 26000 acknowledges that no exhaustive list of SR principles can be compiled. Therefore, these general principles serve as some sort of minimum conditions: any organisation should at least apply these seven SR principles. It is striking to note that a number of principles, which according to some would be classified as inherent to SR and sustainable development, are missing from the list. The specific sustainability impact of an organisation should be guiding its SR efforts.
