A new international standard has been devised to better prepare organisations for events like natural disasters and technology-related accidents.

The Risk Management Institution of Australasia (RMIA) has confirmed its support of the international standard, ISO 22301:2012 Societal Security – Business Continuity Management Systems – Requirements.

The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) describes the new standard as a “framework to plan, establish, implement, operate, monitor, review, maintain and continually improve” a business continuity management system.

“It is expected to help organisations protect against, prepare for, respond to, and recover when disruptive incidents arise.”

RMIA President Grant Whitehorn says ISO 22301 is a “requirements-based standard”, which has caused some controversy in risk management circles.

“Since it is a requirements-based standard, organisations can be audited to determine whether they have met those requirements,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

Mr Whitehorn says RMIA will now seek to have the current AS/NZ 5050:2010 standard on managing disruption-related risk replaced with ISO 22301.