A vade mecum on standardisation
By Alexandre della Faille - Project Manager Standards
NBN (Bureau voor Normalisatie)
ISO 9001 on quality management, ISO 14001 on environmental management: those are two of the most known voluntary standards among thousands of other standardisation documents available on the market. They are not drafted by a club of white collars, their implementation is nowhere near compulsory, and they boost businesses both at micro- and macro-economic levels. How does the system work? And what’s trending nowadays in standardisation? Follow the guide!
Agreed best practices
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A standard in this context is a document containing a set of requirements or recommendations on how to make things as safe, as efficient, as qualitative as possible. Best practices, as it may be. ‘Things’ stands for basically anything that we humans use, manufacture and offer around us, be it products, services, processes or methods. A standardised method to determine the content of recycled materials in a product will create a level-playing field among the companies making that product, and will among others reduce the risk of greenwashing. Requirements on telescopic ladders will guarantee the safety of the ladder and minimise the risks of incidents with the end-user. And a standard on recommendations as to how concretely transition from a linear business model to a circular one will help companies in their sustainability journey (and sometimes comply with regional or European regulation). |
Use it or not? You decide
Once it is published and available, a standard – be it an international standard (ISO xxxxx) or a European standard (EN xxxxx) – is of voluntary application. That means that it is up to each individual organisation to decide whether they are going to implement the standard or not depending on its strategy, objectives, or external circumstances. Except for a very few exceptions, that principle remains also valid for the so-called ‘Harmonised Standards’ – Europeans standards whose development was requested by the European Commission in support of a European Directive or Regulation, and whose list is officially published in the Official Journal of the European Union. However, like for any other document, a standard can be referenced by a third party in a contract, a call for tenders, or a piece of legislation, in which case the standard becomes mandatory for the parties who are subject to it.
Standards boost businesses
There exist thousands of standards, used by hundreds of thousands of organisations. Why are they so popular? In 2020, a market survey carried out by the VUB showed evidence that the use of standards by the Belgian market players accounted for 19% of the GDP growth. Likewise, companies implementing standards gave an average score of 8.2/10 when it comes to the strategic importance of standards for their business. They justified this by the advantages that standards deliver to them: increased and durable quality of products or services, reduction of risks throughout their processes, and better access to other markets. Standards are a genuine means of boosting your activities and staying competitive!
Who develops standards? You!
Who develops standards? That is a relevant question, and the answer might be surprising to many: you could be among the ones developing a standard. Actually, anybody with some expertise, some interest and some readiness to invest in the future is welcome to co-develop a standard. One of the keywords in the world of standardisation is ‘openness’. Within ISO (International Standardization Organization) and CEN (European Committee for Standardization), which are two of the main organisations responsible for standardisation, hundreds of technical committees or TC decide on the strategic direction of standardisation activities within their very own domain. When a new standardisation project is launched within its scope, the TC sets up a dedicated working group or WG to which the project is allocated. The WG is the structure where the future standard will actually be drafted. It is made up of experts from all over Europe or the world, who are nominated by each official member of CEN or ISO. This is where the story becomes interesting: At national level, the CEN or ISO member creates national standardisation committees, each of them being linked to a given TC. Any interested party on the national territory can join any national committee and thereafter be nominated as expert to a WG of that TC.
In addition, a member of a national committee will receive in real time all the documents and draft standards that are circulated within the CEN or ISO technical committee; they will also vote and submit comments on draft standards at various development stages, thereby contributing to shaping the Belgian position on that draft standard.
Taking part, an asset
At Belgian level, the official member of ISO and CEN is NBN, which is a federal institution of public utility. With about 700 national committees counting over 3,500 experts, Belgium is quite active in European and international standardisation. Although all of those committees are open to registrations, NBN is currently dynamising a dozen committees of particular importance nowadays, namely:
- SDG management
- Environmental management (incl. climate change and GHG management)
- OH&S management
- Quality management
- Circular economy
- Sustainable finance
- Hydrogen technologies
- Carbon capture and storage
- Biodiversity
- Data-driven agrifood systems
- Food products
- Drinking water and wastewater
;Many of those national committees are already well populated. National experts come from private or public companies, consultancy firms, universities, associations, federations, authorities, to name only a few. As also made obvious by the VUB market survey in 2020, they are all present there for clear reasons: their membership enables them to become aware before the others of upcoming technological or societal changes in their domain – in a few words, to know upfront what’s coming up next in their sector – and anticipate. They also have access to strategic information that would otherwise be inaccessible (all TC and WG documents and discussions remain confidential), they can safeguard their interests by influencing the content of the standards that apply to them, and they have the opportunity to extend their network and expand their personal knowledge. Regarding this last point, it is meaningful to regard standards not only as paper documents, but as knowledge. The content of standards is a concentrate of a wealth of global knowledge that is pooled together by experts and whose quintessence is delivered to organisations globally at the end of the development process.
Sustainability, you said?
Not surprisingly, more and more standards are being developed that help organisations become more sustainable. It is true that many standards directly applicable to products are being drafted and will continue being drafted in the future. Those standards are specific to a given product and are rather addressed to the industry in that sector (e.g. the soon-to-be-published EN 17988 series on circular design of fishing gear and aquaculture equipment; a brand-new project on circular economy for textile products started in August 2024).
However, ISO and CEN want to deliver a bigger impact globally by integrating sustainability requirements and recommendations into standards that are readily applicable to a broader range of organisations. That is the case of management (system) standards. There is currently a tendency to launch the development or revision of high level, management-style standards that any organisation (regardless of its size, location and sector of activities) can implement to become more sustainable. The future ISO/UNDP 53001 will be a certifiable management system standard helping any organisation put in place and continually improve internal mechanisms to reach the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relevant to them – it is under development and will be published end of 2025.
A first guidance document paving the way to 53001 is ISO/UNDP PAS 53002, published on 12 September 2024 and available free of charge through NBN – it could be seen as a first step towards a more thorough SDG management system.
The future ISO 14060 ‘Net Zero Aligned Organizations’, whose development has just started, will provide high level recommendations for organisations to establish their net zero strategy and prove that it can deliver what they claim it delivers. At the beginning of 2025, the plan is to launch the development of a new certifiable management system standard specifically for circular economy, addressed once again to any organisation around the world. A last example (to name only a few) is the future ISO 45007 addressing OH&S risks arising from climate change and climate action – currently under development as well.
Actually, all 17 SDGs are covered by European and international standards, and the trend is that it is being done through overarching ‘universal’ standards (such as management-like standards); which will increase the impact of those on the global market as well as their coverage of market players.
Your entry point
A powerful, concrete, trustworthy and recognised voluntary tool: those would be the most suitable words to qualify standards. The process is open to anybody, and the entry point for Belgian stakeholders is NBN.
As part of its mission, NBN will be happy to guide you or provide you with more information on standardisation.