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 The Environment and Standards: Close together
The celebration of the World Standards Day this year has a very special connotation for CENELEC, the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization. CENELEC has brought environmental awareness to the top of its agenda by creating a specific Working Group, BTWG 85-3 Environmental Standardization entirely dedicated to avoiding detrimental environmental impacts of CENELEC Standards by advising on relevant issues and promoting guidance where necessary.
CENELEC President Yves Saulnier has endorsed the importance attached by the European Commissioners to international standardization, which is fundamental to minimize global trade barriers. Moreover, the growing importance of environmental issues and the need to foster sustainable development directly influence electrotechnology and its applications.
CENELEC's environmental strategy has already begun to incite a culture change among its standards-writing committees. Through its membership, BTWG 85-3 brings together relevant expertise from national standards bodies, European industry, the Commission and other interested stakeholders, thus providing a balanced contribution to environmental improvement through the standardization process. CENELEC is therefore in the position to demonstrate that development and environment are not necessarily incompatible.
But environmental protection is not a task undertaken solely by BTWG 85-3. Other CENELEC Technical Committees address this issue as well, mostly those dealing with test and measurement standards. TC 59X is responsible for the information to be given to consumers when they purchase household electrical appliances. It aims to harmonize test methods to measure their characteristics, like energy and water consumption or noise levels.October.2001 Related web-sites:
www.cenelec.org
www.cenorm.be
www.etsi.org
www.europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/standards_policy/index.htm
www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/index_en.htm
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