What ESG Essentials covers, and what it deliberately does not

ESG Essentials is Keel-authored. No external standard governs it, so there is no official requirement count for it to be complete against, and that is permanent rather than a number waiting to be verified. It has 25+ scored requirements, every one of them written by Keel.

The honest boundary for a Keel-authored framework is a different one. There is no standard here to leave provisions out of. What there is instead is a set of choices about what a baseline should ask a small company to do, and the checklist those choices were tested against. Both are below.

The checklist it was tested against

The 2026-08-13 enrichment used ISO 26000:2010's core subjects of social responsibility as a checklist of what to cover, and the gaps it exposed were then written from scratch in Keel's words. That does not make ISO 26000 its source standard. ISO 26000 is guidance: it contains no requirements, and nobody can be certified against it. Keel ships no ISO 26000 framework and scores nobody against it.

• 6.2
  Organizational governance

  ISO 26000 lists no issues under this subject.

• 6.3 Some issues not modeled
  Human rights

  Speaks to some of the issues ISO 26000 lists under this subject.

• 6.4
  Labour practices

  Speaks to every issue ISO 26000 lists under this subject.

• 6.5
  The environment

  Speaks to every issue ISO 26000 lists under this subject.

• 6.6
  Fair operating practices

  Speaks to every issue ISO 26000 lists under this subject.

• 6.7
  Consumer issues

  Speaks to every issue ISO 26000 lists under this subject.

• 6.8 Some issues not modeled
  Community involvement and development

  Speaks to some of the issues ISO 26000 lists under this subject.

The issues deliberately not modeled

A statement about subjects invites a reader to assume completeness at the level below, which would be false, so here are the gaps. There is no obligation to close them: ISO 26000 is not this framework's source standard, and completing against a guidance document with no requirements is not a coherent goal.

• 6.3.8
  Civil and political rights

  Civil and political rights. ISO addresses this mainly at states and at organizations whose operations bear on them; Keel has no baseline expectation an SMB could evidence, and inventing one would be padding.

• 6.3.9
  Economic, social and cultural rights

  Economic, social and cultural rights. Same reason - the concrete SMB-facing parts (pay, conditions, non-discrimination, access to services) are already asked for at S.3, S.13, S.2 and S.18, and a separate leaf would double-count.

• 6.8.4
  Education and culture

  Education and culture in the community. Real, but discretionary program work rather than a baseline expectation; S.23 covers community investment generally without prescribing this form of it.

• 6.8.6
  Technology development and access

  Technology development and access. Applies to organizations whose technology or IP affects development outcomes; not a baseline every SMB can act on.

• 6.8.8
  Health

  Community health. S.1 covers worker health and safety and S.16 product safety; community health programs are sector-specific and not part of this baseline.

Where the checklist came from

ISO, "Discovering ISO 26000" (the standard's own free brochure), section "Not for certification" (https://www.nsai.ie/images/uploads/social-responsibility/discovering_iso_26000.pdf), retrieved 2026-08-13. ANSI Webstore product record for ISO 26000:2010, reproducing ISO's catalogue abstract (https://webstore.ansi.org/standards/iso/iso260002010), retrieved 2026-08-13. Clause numbers and short clause titles are factual references to a published standard. Everything ESG Essentials asks for is Keel's original wording; no ISO 26000 text is reproduced or paraphrased, and Keel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for ISO.

Think one of these belongs in the baseline? That is the point of publishing it, so tell us which one. There is more on why ISO 26000 cannot be certified against at is ISO 26000 certifiable, and the full framework is at ESG Essentials.