ISO Management Systems – January-February 2006 27

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‘ The best of the rest ’ from TC 207 plenary

by Ahmad Husseini

Ahmad Husseini is Secretary, ISO/TC 207, Environmental management.

E-mail ahmad.husseini@csa.ca

Web www.tc207.org Web www.csa.ca

Preliminary reports of the 13 th annual plenary meeting of ISO technical committee ISO/TC 207, Environmental manage-ment, hosted in Madrid, Spain, from 12-17 September 2005, by the Spanish Association for Standardization and Certifi ca-tion (AENOR), appeared in the November-December 2005 of ISO Management Systems:

– “ ‘Super Workshop’ address-es challenges to sustainabil-ity ” ;

– “ Follow-up to ISO 14001 SME survey ”, and

– “ ISO/TC 207 resolutions ”.

In addition, the TC’s subcom-mittees (SC’s), working groups (WG’s) and task forces got through a busy programme. Here is a selection of highlights.

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28 ISO Management Systems – January-February 2006

Desert management

Representatives from Egypt raised the issue of a possible new work i tem proposa l (NWIP) on desert manage-ment. The phenomenon of desertifi cation was described as a real threat to the environ-ment and to the economies of many African countries. Sev-eral members supported this init iat ive, and Egypt was requested to work with other members to assess the feasibil-ity of a NWIP.

A request was made to liaise with ISO/TC 228, Tourism, especially since eco-tourism is a major source of income for most developing countries. Ernesto Bachtold was elected as a Chairman of the DCCG for 2006 and 2007.

Joint Arabic Translation Working Group

The group completed transla-tion of ISO 14001, ISO 14004, ISO 14020 (environmental labels), and ISO 14050 (envi-ronmental management vocab-ulary).

SC’s and WGs

Key decisions and resolutions passed during the subcommit-tee and working group meet-ings included :

SC 1, Environmental management systems

– established an SME Task Group to assess the outcome of the Strategic SME report and recommend future action ;

– established a liaison with ISO/TC 176, Quality man-agement, SC 3, Supporting technologies ;

– established a Task Group to evaluate SC 1 involvement in developing ISO/TR 10013, Guidelines for developing quality manuals ; a new work item proposal on customer satisfaction and the study group on people aspects.

SC 2, Environmental auditing and related investigations

– encouraged subcommittee members from developing countries to nominate can-didates for a twinned secre-tariat;

– disbanded the Joint Work-ing Group that developed the ISO 19011 QMS and EMS auditing standard and to consider the wide appli-

cation of the standard in the 2007 review and revision process ;

– recommended the develop-ment of a separate standard with requirements for third party auditor competencies, based on ISO 19011 guid-ance. to enhance the quality and credibility of independ-ent third party certifica-tion ;

– decided on a fi ve-yearly sys-tematic review process for ISO 14015, Environmental Assessment of Sites and Organizations ;

– decided to circulate priority project information on doc-umentation for ISO/TR 10013 to determine the level of interest in continuing the project.

SC 3, Environmental labelling

– approved submission of the ISO/DIS 14025 standard on environmental labels and declarations as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) ;

– considered a label embrac-ing the environmental and other aspects of a product

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Developing Countries Contact Group (DCCG)

The “twinning” issue (leader-ship shared by developed and developing countries) was dis-cussed further and it was rec-ommended that a task group should be formed to investi-gate alternative funding mech-anisms for the full participa-t ion of Vice-Chairs from developing countries in all meetings held by the respec-tive subcommittees. All mem-bers agreed that the implemen-tation of twinning by TC 207 was well done, and a positive step towards building capacity in developing countries.

Spanish Translation Task Force

The task force approved the Spanish translation of green-house gas documents : ISO/FDIS (Final Draft Internation-al Standard) 14064-1 (ES), ISO/FDIS 14064-2 (ES) and ISO/DIS (Draft International Stand-ard) 14064-3 (ES) (leader coun-try, Colombia), and worked on translating ISO/DIS 14063 on environmental communica-tions.

Representatives from Egypt raised a possible new work

item proposal on desert management

The TC’s subcommittees (SC’s), working groups (WG’s) and task forces got through a busy programme.

Representatives from Egypt raised the issue of a possible new work item proposal (NWIP) on desert management.

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ISO Management Systems – January-February 2006 29

such as safety and broader sustainability issues; recon-fi rmed ISO 14020 on general principles of environmental labels and declarations.

SC 5, Environmental life cycle assessment

– discussed revision of the four core standards on life cycle assessment (LCA) : ISO 14040, 14041, 14042 and 14043, to improve readability, gath-er all requirements in one new standard, maintain struc-ture of goal and scope, inven-tory, impact assessment and interpretation as separate chapters, maintain ISO 14040 as a framework document, while transferring all require-ments to the new standard ; and add a general require-ment of a compliance section to 14040 ;

– decided not to revise ISO/TS 14048:2002, Data documen-tation format, but to defer until 2008 the decision to withdraw or transform it to an International Standard ;

– discussed implementation of the twinning concept, reaffi rmed its willingness to

facilitate the participation of Developing Countries in its work and supported the appointment of Dr. Reginald Tan as SC 5 Vice-chair ;

– agreed to advance ISO DIS 14040 and ISO/DIS 14044 to FDIS stage ;

– agreed to hold an LCA workshop during the next plenary to discuss the strat-egy for future LCA stand-ardization.

TCG, Terminology coordina-tion group :

– expressed the need for close cooperation and coordina-tion with all ISO/TC 207 groups to ensure implemen-tation of identifi ed terminol-ogy items, since the TCG has an advisory function only, and externally with ISO/TC 176/SC 1, Concepts and ter-minology, and ISO/CASCO, Committee on conformity assessment. The Joint Advi-sory Group (JAG) has been revitalized, with four TCG representatives, to this end ;

– appointed Carolina Popp, of Argentina, as Vice-Chair, in response to the issue of twin-

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ning of leadership posi-tions.

WG 4, Environmental communication

– approved ISO/DIS 14063, Environmental management – Environmental communi-cation – Guidelines and exam-ples, for submission to FDIS ballot, and subsequent pub-lication as an ISO Interna-tional Standard by mid-April 2006. The meeting therefore concluded the work of ISO TC 207/WG 4 ;

– the task group will continue developing website www.iso.org/14063 presenting cross-references to ISO 14000-doc-uments dealing with com-munication issues, and a bibliography on environ-mental communication.

WG5, Climate change

– ISO 14064, a new three part ISO standard on greenhouse gases, is expected to be pub-lished in early 2006.

– ISO/TC 207 decided to retain WG 5 to facilitate the use of ISO 14064, share information and build capacity on its application, and implement a structured feedback proc-ess to systematically assess its strengths and weaknesses.

WG 6, Greenhouse gas vali-dation and verifi cation bodies

– WG 6 focused on prepara-tion of a Draft International Standard text for ISO 14065, Greenhouse gases – Specifi -cation, for greenhouse gas validation and verification bodies for use in accredita-tion and other forms of rec-ognition.

WG 7, Inclusion of environ-mental aspects in product standards :

– agreed to issue a second working draft of the revision of ISO Guide 64 on environ-mental aspects in product standards, aimed at creating a more user-friendly docu-ment. •

ISO/TC 207’s 13 th plenary meeting was attended by 300 delegates from more than 50 ISO member countries and liaison organizations.

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