Products & Services

Developing standards and best practice

We partner with clients to shape and refine credible best practice, from internal policies to external guidelines, frameworks, and standards.

Enabling Success

Our experts apply rigour, independent facilitation, and consensus building

Enabling you to build confidence and trust in standards and best practice:

Fast track standards: Accelerate confidence in innovation and demonstrate leadership by sponsoring BSI-led standards, developed through consensus.
Custom pathways: Leverage our expertise to develop and enhance effective best practice and standards that you manage or own.

We can guide you on the most effective route. Contact us to discuss your challenges or download our brochure.

Why create a standard, best practice, or framework?

Explore journeys from idea to impact, showing the value of developing and refining customized best practice and standards in action.

Increase confidence: Build trust with best practices and strong frameworks.
Demonstrate leadership: Show credibility, quality, and innovation.
Align your supply chain: Improve sourcing and procurement practices together.
Strengthen an industry scheme: Tackle challenges with openness and support.
Establish clear governance: Set robust policies for better compliance.
Control your own best practice: Retain ownership with tailored approaches to meet your unique goals.

Pathways Compared

We offer three routes to develop rigorous, credible best practice, helping clients identify the most suitable approach.

PAS Standards

A consensus-based route governed by BSI, offering a fast track to recognized best practice. PAS outputs form part of BSI's standards portfolio, providing credibility and market recognition.

Timescale: 9–12 months.

BSI Flex Standards

An agile approach for fast-evolving markets, supporting iterative learning through successive versions. It offers the same credibility as PAS with greater adaptability.

Timescale: Aligned to project milestones.

Pathways

A collaborative, client-led approach where BSI co-designs tailored solutions including frameworks, guidelines, or sector models.

Timescale: Defined by client needs.
PAS and BSI Flex:

Governed by BSI under established standards rules. Sponsors can propose areas of focus and contribute expertise, but BSI defines and oversees the project scope to safeguard transparency, balanced participation, and long-term credibility.

Pathways:

As truly client-led projects, we provide our wide range of expertise to contribute toward supporting the client’s goals. The expertise we contribute ensures quality, integrity, and alignment with recognized best practice, while we agree from the outset on areas such as governance and approach based on our extensive experience. We also operate a flexible approach that can adapt to new insight, but development decisions remain client-led.
The extent to which BSI branding can be referenced depends on the chosen approach:

PAS and BSI Flex:

As BSI governed standards, these carry BSI branding and form part of BSI's standards portfolio. They provide recognized public credibility and neutrality. Sponsoring organizations may co-brand the standard to reflect their contribution, which can offer potential marketing and reputational benefits.

Pathways:

For these projects, the governance is bespoke and they do not sit as part of BSI's standards portfolio and therefore do not use formal BSI branding in the same way. However, clients can reference BSI's role as a trusted partner, with statements around its independent input, process integrity, and quality assurance.
Existing policies, frameworks, or materials can often underpin a PAS, BSI Flex, or Pathways project.

BSI helps translate existing content into structured, credible outputs, from public standards to tailored internal tools, applicable across organizations or markets.
PAS and BSI Flex:

BSI manages these end-to-end under established standards procedures, ensuring balanced participation, transparency, and quality assurance. Our role includes project management, research, stakeholder coordination, and technical editing through to publication. PAS produces a single, consensus-based standard, while Flex applies the same rigour through an adaptable, iterative model suited to fast-evolving sectors.

Pathways:

Pathways are flexible and client-led. BSI co-designs the process to align with each client's priorities and context, integrating expertise across research, engagement, and drafting. This combines client insight with BSI experience to deliver credible, practical outcomes aligned with recognized best practice.
PAS and BSI Flex:

BSI manages participation to ensure balanced representation across industry, academia, government, and users. Sponsors can propose participants, while we maintain oversight to ensure neutrality.

Pathways:

Clients determine the scope and scale of stakeholder participation, with the flexibility to include or limit external input as appropriate. BSI provides guidance where needed and can shape and implement representative engagement activity as required, but decisions rest with the client.
All projects are funded by the commissioning organization. This may be a single company, a consortium, a trade body, or a collaborative grouping.

While each project varies in scope and structure, all are delivered as complete, managed projects designed around client outcomes.
BSI supports clients in managing confidentiality and publication at every stage.

PAS and BSI Flex standards include mandatory public consultation to ensure transparency and balanced participation.

Pathways projects are typically private to the commissioning client unless publication or wider consultation is agreed.

Success Stories

Explore client journeys from idea to impact, showing the value of developing and refining customized best practice and standards

Consultation

Driving credible climate action

Discover how VCMI’s fast track consultation framework fostered global collaboration, enabling robust and transparent climate guidance.

Bespoke Standard

Streamlining hygiene standards

See how EDANA’s bespoke standard created consistency across hygiene products, improving quality and supply chain resilience.

Fast-track Standard

Cutting carbon in infrastructure

Learn how PAS 2080 transformed carbon management in infrastructure projects, reducing emissions and operational costs.

Getting Started

Check out our brochure and article to learn how we can help you take that next step in building trust and strong leadership.

Brochure

Developing best practice

Learn how to create and refine credible best practice, exploring processes, benefits, and examples from organizations driving industry change.

Download brochure

Article

Building trust and industry leadership

Discover how sponsoring a fast-track standard helped organizations like International SOS and A-Safe boost trust, credibility, and reputation.

Download

Insights & Media

Resources on standards development initiatives helping to improve the world

Explore the latest thinking from the experts creating new standards and innovating existing ones.

Recursos multimedia

Caso de estudio

Telesoft Technologies Made Standards Key to Strategy

Leer el caso de estudio

Talk to an expert

Start a conversation with our team and take the first step on your journey.