ISO standards are internationally recognized sets of standards. proven good practice, which help organizations systematically manage specific areas such as the environment, safety or ethics. While ESG is primarily used for reporting and interpreting data for investors, ISO standards provide specific guidance on how to set up processes so that the organization actually achieves its sustainability goals.

Environmental pillar (E)

This pillar focuses on how the organization's activities affect the environment and how it manages the associated risks.

• ISO 14001:2015 – Environmental Management Systems (EMS):
  • Goal: Environmental protection and pollution prevention in balance with socio-economic needs.
  • Benefits: It helps reduce waste and energy, water and gas consumption, which leads to cost reduction and increasing profits.
  • Functioning: The organization must identify the environmental aspects of its activities and products throughout their life cycle and manage their impacts.
• ISO 14064-1:2018 – Greenhouse gases (GHG):
  • Focus: It provides a framework for quantifying and reporting greenhouse gas emissions (including CO2) at the organizational level.
  • Synergy: It serves as an essential foundation for effective climate management and is closely linked to energy management.
• ISO 50001:2018 – Energy Management Systems (EnMS):
  • Purpose: Continuously improving energy efficiency and reducing energy consumption.
  • ESG link: It acts as a "data provider" for greenhouse gas inventories according to ISO 14064-1.
  • Implementation: It focuses on areas with significant energy consumption (SEU), where the greatest potential for savings exists.

Social pillar (S)

The social factor evaluates the company's impact on people - employees, suppliers, customers and communities.

• ISO 26000:2010 – Guidelines for social responsibility:
  • This standard provides guidance on how to integrate socially responsible behavior into an organization's strategy.
  • It covers areas such as human rights, labor practices, and community involvement.
• ISO 45001:2018 – Occupational Safety and Health (OSH):
  • Goal: Improving worker safety and eliminating workplace risks.
  • Meaning: It replaces older standards (such as OHSAS 18001) and emphasizes the active role of top management in safety.
•  Human Resources Management – Diversity and Inclusion:
  • Focus: It provides guidance for incorporating diversity and inclusion (D&I) principles into all management systems.
  • Benefits: It helps eliminate cognitive biases in recruitment and career growth and increases the company's attractiveness to talent (especially millennials).
  • Transparency: It serves as a tool to demonstrate an organization's inclusive capabilities through an independent audit.

Steering column (G)

This factor relates to ethics, transparency and good governance of the organization as a whole.

• ISO 37001:2025 – Anti-bribery management systems:
  • Goal: Preventing, detecting and resolving cases of bribery within the organization.
  • Mechanisms: It includes measures such as policies for gifts and hospitality (e.g. setting limits on the value of gifts) and requires informing business partners about these rules.
  • Integration: It can be easily integrated with other management systems (e.g. ISO 9001 or ISO 14001) to strengthen an organization's overall resilience to corruption risks.
• Common elements of these standards in the ESG context: All of these ISO standards require an organization to: policy setting, risk and opportunity analysis, setting measurable goals, and regular monitoring and evaluation of data. The established ISO system thus facilitates the transition to mandatory ESG reporting for the organization, because it already has the necessary data and processes in place. JRI&CO2AI