Other product standards

The environmental impacts of a product during its use and end-of-life phases are strongly influenced by the early design phase of the product. Therefore standards related to product design play a significant role. A “product standard” specifies requirements to be fulfilled by a product, establishing its fitness for purpose throughout the life cycle.

Life cycle thinking is necessary to evaluate and improve the environmental aspects and potential impacts associated with the product. The following environmental aspects should be considered when carrying out a life cycle analysis: resource use, energy consumption, emission to air, emission to water, waste, noise, migration of hazardous substances, impact on soil and risks to the environment from accidents or misuse. The incorporation of environmental standards into product design has many complementary advantages: inventing new technologies, reduction of costs & increased profits, new business opportunities by creating a competitive market advantage.

In order to give a guideline to standard writers, ISO and CEN have produced guides for the inclusion of environmental aspects into product standards: ISO guide 64 (published in 1997) and CEN guide 4, both almost identical except some additional references in the CEN guide (re-published in 2005). The ISO guide 64 revision was carried out by a new Working Group of ISO/TC 207: WG 7 "Inclusion of Environmental Aspects into Product Standards". This revision is nearly completed (editing phase).

ECOS has been sending experts to this Working Group 7 since 2005. They advocated for a high level of ambition and relevant examples given in this new ISO Guide 64.