New product environmental comparison and assessment standards

Aware of the current and future importance of environmental standardisation, the Basque Ecodesign Center, through Ihobe, made the decision to join the AENOR Standardisation 150 Technical Committee on Environmental Management.

As part of the policy framework of this group, the standardisation of environmental management tools and systems is analysed and its activity is divided into four groups: SC1 Environmental management systems, SC2 Environmental audit and assessment of the environmental performance, SC3 Eco-labelling and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and SC4 Terminology.

This working party implements the mirroring functions in Spain of the Environmental Management ISO/TC207 and Ecodesign Methodology for Mechanical Products CEN/PC 406 international committees.

During 2014, those new regulatory developments were identi?ed and monitored that, in the future, could have important implications for those leading companies in environmental management. The following are among the projects identi?ed and analysed:

CEN/TS 16524.– Mechanical products—Methodology for reduction of environmental impacts in product design and development.
ISO 14046:2014– Environmental Management—Water footprint—Principles, requirements and guidelines.
ISO 14031:2013– Environmental Management—Environmental performance evaluation—Guidelines.
ISO/TS 14072:2014.- Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Requirements and guidelines for Organizational Life Cycle Assessment .
ISO/DTS 14027.– Environmental labels and declarations - Type III environmental declarations—Product Category Rule (PCR) development .

This project aims to analyse and pilot the implications that those new standards could have on the industrial activity of the companies of the Basque Country as the basis to perform the appropriate technical assistance and dissemination tasks.

In turn, those standards that could be of particular importance for the partner companies of the Basque Ecodesign Center will be technically monitored during their development phase in order to made any contributions and carry out any improvements that are identi?ed.