Change in the leadership of ISO/TC 207

The Plenary Meeting of ISO/TC 207, the ISO technical committee dedicated to environmental management, ended last friday in Halifax, Canada.

Hundreds of experts, representing developed and developing countries, have formed dozens of working groups dedicated to the development of standards for environmental management, auditing, environmental communication, environmental indicators, life cycle assessment of products and mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

The meeting was the occasion of an handover in the ISO/TC 207 guidance, even if the formal change will only take place by the end of 2017. Chair Bob Page (Canada) and vice-chair Haroldo Mattos de Lemos (Brazil), for nine years heads of the technical committee, passed the baton on the occasion of the final plenary meeting respectively to Sheila Legget (Canada) and Daniel Trillos (Colombia).

The review of ISO 14067 marked a further important step forward with the confirmation of the transition from CD to DIS of the draft standard.

In the coming weeks, an internal vote within the SC7 will also be launched, on the possibility of maintaining a disclaimer in paragraph 4 of the standards, related to commercial barriers. This would not be permitted in accordance with ISO Directives, as ISO standards cannot been developed to create commercial barriers, but some developing countries, particularly sensitive to the topic, have called for a formal exception request to ISO/TMB.

It is also worth mentioning the reprimand of ISO Technical Programme Manager to India during the SC7 final meeting for the action of the BIS (Indian Standards Entity) CEO to other developing countries, aimed at blocking the development of ISO 14067. This topic will be probably discussed in the ISO General Assembly in September.

The seminar on CFP on June 21^st, which can be accessed via streaming (in Italian), will also be an opportunity to discuss the most interesting changes of the developing standard.