ISO TECHNICAL COMMITTEE - ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

The International Organisation for Standardisation recently held the 18th Plenary of its Technical Committee 207 responsible for developing environmental management standards in Oslo Norway. The Committee has a broad remit that includes EMS, Environmental Auditing, LCA, GHG and Environmental Labeling amongst other topics. The formal meeting was held over 5 days and involved more than 300 representatives of national standards bodies and liaison organisations.

The outcome of the meeting was to continue work on developing and revising the following standards:

• Subcommittee 1 Environmental Management

• Published ISO 14005 Environmental management systems -- Guidelines for the phased implementation of an environmental management system, including the use of environmental performance evaluation and 14006 Environmental management systems — Guidelines for incorporating ecodesign.
• Revising 14001:2004 Environmental management systems - Requirements with guidance for use and ISO 14004:2004 Environmental management systems - General guidelines on principles, systems and support techniques 14001. Revisions to these standards are likely to commence later this year and are aimed for completion in 2015.   

• Subcommittee 2 Environmental Auditing and related activities   

• Revising ISO 14015 Environmental management - Environmental assessment of sites and organizations (EASO) this will commence with the distribution of a questionnaire seeking information about the use of the standard.
• Continuing to investigate current developments on auditing/verification of publicly available environmental and sustainability reports
• Developing competence standards for the selection of EMS auditors by certification bodies. 

• Subcommittee 3 Environmental Labeling
• The subcommittee is currently considering the a revision of ISO 14020:1999 – Environmental labels and declarations — General principles
• Finalising an amendment to ISO 14021: 1999 – Environmental labels and declarations — Self-declared environmental claims (Type II environmental labeling) with respect to recycling symbols for circulation by ISO Central Secretariat.
• Subcommittee 4 Environmental Performance Evaluation 

• Revising ISO 14031:1999 Environmental management -- Environmental performance evaluation – Guidelines
• Developing an new standard ISO/DTS 14033 Environmental management -- Quantitative environmental information -- Guidelines and examples

• Subcommittee 5 Life Cycle Assessment 

• Developing a new standard entitled ISO 14045 : Eco-efficiency assessment – Principles and requirements
• Developing a new standard entitled (ISO 14046) : Water footprint – Requirements and guidelines

• Subcommittee 7 GHG Management and related activities

• Developing ISO 14067 Carbon footprint of products — Requirements and guidelines for quantification and communication (WG2). This is ongoing work with the standard at the Committee Draft stage and expected to be published in 2012.
• Development of ISOTR 14069  Greenhouse gases — Quantification and reporting of GHG emissions for organizations — Guidance for the application of ISO 14064-1.  This is ongoing work with the standard at the Working Draft stage and is expected to be published in 2013.