Uni ISO 37001 Certification is a valuable tool against corruption and offers an excellent competitive advantage.
ISO 37001: what is it?
Creating Anti-corruption management systems: this is the ISO 37001’s aim, also known as “Anti-bribery management systems“. The term “norm” can deceive. In fact, it’s associated more with the idea of having to do with something or having to take on a certain behavior. However, in this case let us talk about help. The standard ISO 37001 is a tool, therefore a support, a help, for the Organizations engaged in the fight against corruption.
Separate or integrated: the Anti-bribery management systems, whose acronym is ABMS, it can be applied autonomously or it can be integrated into an existing management system, such as the ISO 9001 Quality management system.
ISO 37001 certification: the advantages
SO 37001 Certification is a tool, it isn’t the absolute solution to any disputes and sanctions. Just as, it cannot prevent corrupting acts. However, it’s certainly a valuable support for reducing significantly a) the occurrence of events related to corruption and b) the exposure to the sanctions provided for in the legislative provisions.
Organisations/companies which meet the ISO 37001 standard, at the time of the occurrence of a crime, they can rely on the adoption of models inspired by crime prevention. Models recognized as Best Practice (international standard).
Notices and orders, the ISO 37001 improves competitiveness
The road is now opened. The path that we’ve in front of us, it’ll be the one that sees the certification ISO 37001 as an inseparable travel companion. It’ll be a peculiar feature to differentiate both from an ethical point of view, but also substantial. In effect, adherence to ISO 37001 certification will be increasingly required in the case of tenders and orders. The same is applied to public procurement. In this case, ISO 37001 will help in achieving a reputational increase in the perceived Legality Rating of all stakeholders with whom you stay in touch.
Anti-bribery management systems and economic benefits
ISO 37001 is an international standard. This tells us two things. The first is that the rule can be applied to any type of organisation. The second is that corruption is a worldwide problem. And both individual states, but also international organizations such as OCSE and ONU are undertaken to facing this problem. This commitment isn’t enough, however. Proactive work by individual organisations/companies is needed. It’s in everyone’s interest since corruption causes considerable economic damage.
According to a European Parliament’s study published in 2017, corruption – we can read in the study– it’s a plague that has an enormous cost not only because it affects the rule respect of law, but also because it takes resources away from the community, as certified by the European Commission, that corruption in the EU has a cost of around EUR 120 billion a year in terms of tax revenue and investment losses.
And so, using a tool like ISO 37001 Certification can help prevent: reputational damage, loss of capital value, decrease in orders. In fact, these are the consequences that a company must suffer if it has committed corruption-related acts.
