Ms Bernadette Phelan:

Through our own work with businesses, it was in 2011 when we realised Irish businesses were maturing and embracing this agenda. We worked to introduce an ISO, International Organization for Standardization, guidance piece, ISO 26000. We partnered with the NSAI to develop it into a standard. It was a progressive step taken by Irish businesses.

We see legislation as the minimum standard that is for what businesses should be aiming. What we focus on is having a management framework in place for responsible business practice. Part of our mission and vision – this goes back to measurement and trying to put our arms around it - is adapting a standards-based approach. That means that we should be able to mature the measurement agenda and really understand what business looks like. Again, our ethos within the work we do is based on continuous improvement. No matter where a company is starting or its size, it is about looking where it is now and how it can improve. That type of ISO standard lends itself to having that impetus in reviewing where one is at and coming up with a gap analysis and progressing. We emphasise within the forum and the work a business does in the community does that it is very much in that narrative of painting a picture of what good looks and how it can support its business. The punishment for business is not engaging and then, as a result, not winning business, attracting the right staff or winning contracts. That is where the implications of not being responsible as a business ccome to the fore.

It is important that, within the ethos of the action plan, it be about Ireland being a centre for excellence in pursuing this agenda. That we have a standard that businesses are applying is a good evidence point. It shows that there is an appetite within the business community to increase our standards and to do it as a statement on what good looks like in an Irish business.