INNI
Online Update | Issue #8
March 2005
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INTRODUCTION
LETTER UPDATES BY
ISSUE AREA HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE Dear INNI members, As you may have learned from our previous announcements, the INNI has introduced two new features for its membership in recent months. In January, we reached an agreement with ISO to make all Draft International Standards produced by TC 207 - Environmental Management publicly available through our website. And earlier this month, the INNI launched its Online Discussion Forum to provide our NGO members a venue to share their ideas and develop strategies with colleagues worldwide. The Forum's first topic is focusing on ISO's nascent effort to develop a Social Responsibility standard, and we encourage you to join the discussion. To participate in the Discussion Forum, organizations must register as an Active Member of the INNI. To learn more about the Online Discussion Forum and Active Membership, click here. We believe both of these new features of the INNI will provide members more opportunities to be informed of (and get involved in) ISO's environmental and social standards development activities, and we encourage you to explore them. Of course, we will keep providing up-to-date information on ISO through our website and this newsletter as well. Best regards, Jason Morrison PS For those new to the INNI, more general information about the initiative, past issues of the INNI Online Update, and background material on the topics we cover can be found on the INNI website. ISO Initiates Work on Social Responsibility Standard In January 2005, as expected, ISO member countries overwhelmingly (36 of 37 countries voting) approved the new work item proposal to develop an international standard on Social Responsibility (SR). Preparation to launch the standard development work had been already well underway in advance of this formal approval. Since September 2004, the leadership of the Working Group (WG) on SR (Sweden and Brazil) had been planning for the first meeting of the group, which was held in early March 2005 in Salvador, Brazil. More than 300 delegates attended the meeting, representing 43 member countries - including 21 developing countries - and 24 liaison organizations. The experts in attendance were nominated according to a special procedure set forth by ISO's senior management body, the Technical Management Board. That is, each country was asked to nominate a maximum of six experts, one for each of the following stakeholder categories: industry, government, labor, consumer, non-governmental organization, and other. As a result, this meeting of ISO had a precedent-setting diversity of stakeholders. The primary objectives of the meeting were to: agree upon a design specification (i.e., outline) for the SR standard; establish the corollary structure of the WG and its subgroups; develop operating procedures, and assign leadership positions for the WG's subgroups. While not all of these objectives were accomplished, significant progress was made in certain areas. For a more detailed description and analysis of the outcome of the first ISO SR WG meeting, click here. Also, click here for a detailed review of the Salvador event written by Paul Hohnen, a consultant on sustainable development and CSR issues who participated in the meeting as an expert representing the Global Reporting Initiative. First Formal Drafts of ISO's Water Management Standards Released for Review Technical Committee (TC) 224, the body developing
ISO's water management standards, recently circulated to its membership
the first Committee Drafts (CD) of its standards for review, comment,
and formal approval. Final preparation of the CDs took place in
Valencia, Spain in late January 2005, where TC 224 experts worked
to improve clarity and harmonization among the three standards:
Guidelines for the service to
users (ISO 24510); Guidelines
for the assessment of wastewater services and the management of
utilities (ISO 24511); and Guidelines
for the assessment of drinking water services and the management
of utilities (ISO 24512). Comments and votes from TC 224 member
countries and liaison organizations are due by the June 24, 2005.
Any organization interested in reviewing and commenting on the draft
standards can do so by contacting its national
standards body or the INNI
Secretariat in advance of that deadline. TC 224, at its next
meeting in Berlin, Germany in October 2005, will discuss all comments
submitted during the CD review phase. ISO Releases Draft International Standards on Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Environmental Communications ISO's Working Group on climate change has released for comment and balloting its three-part Draft International Standard (DIS), ISO 14064 - Greenhouse Gas Quantification, Monitoring, and Reporting. The deadline for comments (and votes from ISO member countries) is June 27, 2005. ISO's Working Group on environmental communications has also released a DIS version of its standard, ISO 14063 - Environmental Communications - Guidelines and Examples for comment and balloting, with a deadline for comments (and votes by ISO member countries) of May 17, 2005. The DIS or "enquiry" stage is the first time at which a draft ISO standard undergoes a review and ballot by the entire ISO membership, not just the member countries participating in Technical Committee producing it. Interested organizations can download the standards for the purpose of review at INNI's Draft International Standard page, and are encouraged to submit comments to their respective national standards bodies or the INNI Secretariat before the respective deadlines noted above. ISO/TC 207's Working Groups on climate change and environmental communications will both meet in mid-September in Madrid to discuss and incorporate the comments received and to prepare Final Draft International Standards for ballot. Both groups hope to publish their final ISO standards in early 2006. ISO/TC 207 Approves Workplan to Improve NGO Participation In recognition that the committee must bring more NGOs into the fold, the national member bodies of TC 207, ISO's environmental management committee, voted in December 2004 to support Phase I of a workplan that seeks to enhance NGO involvement in the forum. Key elements of the workplan include establishing attendance metrics according to stakeholder group, beginning to track participation at TC 207 meetings, and compiling examples of successful efforts at the national level vis-à-vis stakeholder consultaion. The workplan, developed by a task group consisting of NGOs and representatives of TC 207's leadership, will be implemented over the course of 2005 and 2006. Miscellaneous News Study Provides Extensive Review of Social and Environmental Certification and Labeling A report focusing on common constrains and benefits of environmental and social certification and labeling systems, as well as their impact on the market access and competitiveness of developing countries was released in October 2004. Prepared by the Ethical Certification and Labelling (ECL) Space, the study examines more than 95 case studies, and five environmental/social certification schemes, including ISO 14001. Major findings of the report include the general lack of transparency of ECL schemes, limited participation by developing countries in standard setting processes, and insufficient financial and institutional capacity to implement the requirements. ISO Water Committee Releases the Latest Iteration of Its Business Plan ISO Technical Committee (TC) 224, the group developing water management standards, released the latest version of its Business Plan in December 2004. New Mechanism Used to Enable Developing Country
Input into ISO's Water Management Standards ISEAL Alliance Issues Conflict of Interest
Report
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