Background
The world of standardisation and the world of European environmental policies remain often two separated worlds. They speak two different languages and function according to two different sets of rules. Each has an interest to keep the other out of its business: for politics the technicalities of standardisation are not exciting – and the standard makers love to stay among themselves. The key challenge for better environmental integration is this: the political and technical arenas must get inter-linked. We still have a long way to go before this can be achieved.
This paragraph is the introduction of the speech presented by Dr. Christian Hey at the ECOS 2005 Annual General Meeting. Dr Christian Key is Secretary General of the German advisory council for the Environment and Member of the Steering Committee of the European Environmental and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils. His speech went into details of the interlinkage between policy and standards making. To read the full speech, click here.
At the 'World Standards Day' conference organised by the European Commission in October 2007, Ralf Lottes (ECOS Secretary General) made a presentation on how standards can (or should) be an opportunity for civil society. His speech is a good summary of ECOS' work and positioning on standardisation & policy processes. To see this presentation, click here.
In 2010 ECOS will keep on following EU activities and mandates related to standardisation. In particular ECOS will continue to support the European Commission in promoting the idea of increased stakeholder participation in standardisation as well as better provisions to integrate environmental aspects in standards.
ECOS will also strongly advocate for a consistent approach in environmental and product policies, giving space to voluntary standards when they are appropriate and effective (on measurement methods for instance) but maintening the precedence of regulations and directives when it comes to limiting environmental impacts and ensuring minimum ecological performance. In particular ECOS does not support the New Approach to become the default model for product policies in Europe.
Links and attachements
ECOS position on the revision of the New Approach to Technical Harmonisation (2006)