Emergency Preparedness

Frank Irving — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:45:30 GMT

According to a report released April 30 by The Conference Board, three-quarters of 302 senior corporate executives surveyed in mid-2007 said that an emergency preparedness plan exists in their companies. But there's no widely adopted certification standard for such plans, the survey summary stated.

The analysis was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as part of an ongoing research project to assess the effectiveness of security in American companies.

The Conference Board report stated, "A 'voluntary' certification process for preparedness was adopted as part of the 2007 homeland security legislation (Public Law 110-53). The choice of standards that would permit certification under the law is currently under review. As this report goes to press, it is expected that several different standards may qualify for certification."

“Currently, the most significant finding is that none of the many standards proposed for certification has attained widespread usage in the private sector,” said Thomas Cavanagh, Senior Research Associate, Global Corporate Citizenship, The Conference Board.

The report added: "The most common standard is the ISO 27001/17799 information security standard, which has been implemented by 23 percent of the surveyed companies. Following close behind, used by 20 percent of companies, is NFPA 1600, which was endorsed as the National Preparedness Standard in 2004 by DHS, the U.S. Congress, the 9/11 Commission, and the American National Standards Institute. Three other kinds of standards have all been implemented by 12 percent of companies."

[Please visit the site to access the poll]

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Emergency Preparedness