The Business Continuity Institute (CONTINUAM) and the Spanish Association for Standardization, UNE, have signed a collaboration agreement with the aim of promoting cooperation and collaboration in UNE technical bodies related to the new Digital Society. Likewise, the UNE Committee on Risk, safety and resilience management (CTN 196) as a benchmark forum in the standardization of safety and business continuity.
According to Javier García, CEO at UNE, "this collaboration is aligned with the UNE 2025 Strategy, which aims to help Spanish society overcome its major challenges. Standards are strategic tools that help organisations to implement continuity and resilience plans, this way increasing their resilience and adaptive capacity to cope with and adjust to threats, which is becoming more relevant given the current uncertain scenario."
According to Pedro Pablo López, President of CONTINUAM, "sustainable organisational and social resilience (ROSS 3.0) based on the pillars of prevention /risks, detection/security, response/emergencies, recovery/continuity and improvement/lessons learned, is and must be the new DNA of the organisational and societal culture in the 21st century, in order to make it more reliable, trustworthy and sustainable."
To promote synergies between the two organisations, UNE will participate in the RESILIUM Forum, a meeting point between associations, foundations, companies and professionals from Spain and Latin America for the exchange of ideas and the development of best practices within the framework of the Sustainable Organisational and Societal Resilience Manifesto, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations Agenda 2030.
Furthermore, CONTINUAM, which is institutionally linked to UNE and has become part of its associative base as a new member, will contribute with its experience and holistic vision of business continuity. Thus, it will highlight the knowledge of its professionals and promote synergies that allow for the increase of best practices in continuity through standardisation and the dissemination of its results, this way contributing to improving the resilience of companies and society.
The scope of activity of this UNE committee includes the development of standards in areas such as risk management, the safety and resilience of organisations and society, and crisis and emergency management, among others.
Examples of global standards with best practices are the UNE-ISO 31000 standards that establish guidelines for correct management of irrigation; UNE-EN ISO 22301 which specifies the requirements of a business continuity system in organizations or UNE-ISO 22320 which establishes the guidelines for emergency management and the protection and safety of citizens.
