National foreword

This Published Document is the UK implementation of ISO/TS 22360:2024.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee CAR/1, Continuity and Resilience.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

This publication is provided as is, and is to be used at the recipient’s own risk.

The recipient is advised to consider seeking professional guidance with respect to its use of this publication.

This publication is not intended to constitute a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

This publication is not to be regarded as a British Standard.

Compliance with a Published Document cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This Published Document was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 28 February 2025.

Foreword

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This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 292 Security and resilience.

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Introduction

0.1 Context

The ability to respond to and recover from a crisis has become a primary concern of governments, public and private sector organizations, and regional, urban, and local communities. This concern has led to an increased emphasis on crisis response and governance by boards of management and business owners.

Crises conditions can manifest throughout all elements of society and significantly impact upon the goals and objectives of nations, regional and urban areas, communities, organizations (both public sector and private enterprise) and individual people.

Crises may arise from failures to manage security of assets, information, reputations or sovereign risks to governments or organizations or to provide safety and protection of members of society from personal injury, loss, or harm.

Guidance on crisis management and decision making under uncertainty is a much sought-after global commodity.

This document provides guidance on the origins of crises and their relationship to the global social, economic, and technological systems and their interaction with the natural environment. A social-ecological system (SES) model is used to define the social and environmental dependencies and how the condition of these systems can change unexpectedly. It provides the knowledge to build a framework for crisis prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.

Integral to the framework is recognition of an organizations internal and external context in which crises conditions can develop. The SES model explains the complex relationship between elements of the total systems environment in which the organization operates and achieves its objectives. The framework also establishes concepts, principles, and a structure under which all standards relating to crises can be defined and classified, creating a logical reference for the development of an ISO family of standards for crisis management.

0.2 Focus

This document provides an informative guide to the factors contributing to crises which have the potential to pose an existential threat to people, organizations, communities, government, and societies.

In relation to societal security and resilience, a state of crisis comprises an increased level of complexity with interconnecting elements and a range of changing circumstances, often under conditions of high uncertainty. Significant adverse consequences can arise that create challenges for individuals and organizations if early warning indicators of crises are not recognised and acted upon.

Understanding the nature of crises, their key elements, characteristics and traits and the way crises evolve, is an essential prerequisite for implementation of policies, strategies and plans for anticipating crises and their management during and in post crisis situations.

Crises can be viewed from a range of different perspectives. They arise out of varying circumstances and with different effect in almost any personal, community, organizational or natural environment. Often the human element is a common thread contributing to systemic failures and crises.

With a high degree of interconnectivity, a state of crisis can also create a contagion effect, transmitting the consequences of crises among people and to organizations.

Frequently, the emergence of a state of personal crises for an individual may have a direct effect on other people, creating social crisis contagion, simply by association. The inability of people to cope with difficult or intolerable personal circumstances can result in poor judgement or irrational decision making in the workplace, thereby exposing the organization to failures that may ultimately affect the operational integrity of the business and its brand and reputation.

Systemic failures such as the global financial crisis and the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrate that crises can transition to, and transcend all boundaries of modern society.

In today’s complex and interconnected society, organizations need to better understand the multiple sources and vectors of risk and how knowledge of these critical interdependencies and their influences on people, organizations and communities can contribute to more effective crisis management policies and strategies and plans.

The social-ecological system (SES) model and framework for establishing the contexts in which crises originate and how they determine a crisis, is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 2 provides the basis for understanding of sources of crises. It illustrates the fundamental elements of a social-ecological system and the interactions between multiple system components. Any changes in context (structure or composition) in any of the sub-systems, or changes in interconnected and overlapping relationships, can be the source of abnormal or extraordinary events, and unstable conditions leading to issues, incidents, emergencies, and potential crisis situations.

Early detection of changes in conditions within systems that are often complex, creates awareness of potential factors that can influence or contribute to crises affecting an individual, organization, community or society and the way in which they interface with the natural environment.

Issues, incidents, emergencies, and crises can emerge directly from changes in a single system component. However, the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity associated with unstable conditions in the connecting nodes and their links within a social-ecological system can significantly influence the rate at which these changes in the environment can transition to emergency or crisis conditions.

0.3 Purpose

This document provides information to help users understand crisis concepts and principles. It explains the inherent characteristics of crises, and identifies areas for analysis where improved policies, strategies and standards can be developed to enhance the resilience of people, organizations, communities, governments, and societies, to anticipate, prepare, respond to, recover from, or adapt to crises. It establishes a conceptual framework, applying an integrated social-ecological systems approach to contextualizing crises as they relate to the human factor, and their impact upon, communities, organizations, governments, and society generally.

1 Scope

This document provides an outline of crisis concepts and the principles that inform and support contemporary thinking on the circumstances and conditions under which crises can develop.

It specifies:

concepts and principles, governing crises;
the social-ecological system (SES) framework in which crises develop;
factors that contribute to crises;
the progression and evolution of a crisis;
a structure for classifying crises;
the relationship between issues, incidents, emergencies, disasters, and crises;
a crisis taxonomy for the systematic development of policies, strategies, and standards, relevant to crisis management (see Annex A).

This document does not provide guidance on how organizations can:

manage physiological or psychological aspects of human reactions to personal crises;
manage personal health or public health crisis affecting individuals, communities, or having broader impacts on society;
design, develop or implement crisis management programs or plans;
develop a strategic capability for crisis management;
apply crisis management techniques to specific crisis situations.

This document is applicable to all organizations. It can also be applied by standards users and standards writers and educators. It encourages a better understanding of crisis concepts and the interconnected characteristics of factors that contribute to crises through referencing the crisis controls and effects social-ecological system model. The application of the principles described in this document can encourage consistency in the use of crises related terms and definitions and complements other ISO standards for crisis management.

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 Principles

4.1 Guiding principles relating to crises

4.2 Principle 1: Crisis is contextual

4.3 Principle 2: Crisis control is dependent upon a systems approach

4.4 Principle 3: The all-hazards approach informs crisis preparedness

4.5 Principle 4: Crisis management is a core capability

4.6 Principle 5: Crises can present threat and opportunity

5 Crisis framework

5.1 The role of crisis analysis

5.2 Structural and functional elements of a crisis

5.3 Framework factors and elements

6 Classification of crises

6.1 No crises are the same

6.2 Source of crisis

6.3 Crisis participants

6.4 Crises by extent of impact and contagion effects

6.5 Classifying sources of crises from natural hazards

7 Characteristics of crises

7.1 Characteristics as a source of knowledge

7.2 Common features and qualities

7.3 Characteristics of a crises in a vulnerable systems state

7.4 Characteristics of a crises in a defective systems state

7.5 Characteristics of crises in a failed systems state

7.6 Characteristics of an effective crisis response

8 The development of crisis conditions

8.1 Transition from a state of normal functioning

8.2 State of vulnerability

8.3 Defective and failed state

8.4 The progression of crises

9 Crises - An integrated social-ecological system

9.1 Changes in context – the source of initiating events

9.2 Systems affected by change

9.3 Positive and negative influences of change

9.4 Abnormal or extraordinary events

9.5 Issue management

9.6 Initiating events

9.7 Issue, incident, emergency (non-linear relationships)

9.8 Resolution or escalation

9.9 Decisive (tipping) point

Bibliography

PD ISO/TS 22360:2024

Security and resilience. Crisis management. Concepts, principles and framework

Current

Published:

28 Feb 2025