The world-leading standards body the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC), and the International Telecommunication (ITU) each year on October 14th celebrate the World Standards Day to salute the collaborative efforts of experts who are involved in the formulation of voluntary standards for the betterment of the world activities paving the way to enhancing the quality of life of people. The theme declared last year was “Protecting the planet with standards”.
I take my hat off to the presidents of the three main standards bodies for selecting a timely important issue as the year 2020 theme for the world standards day which reemphasizes the importance of paying attention to the climate change issues and the value of use standards in addressing such issues.
Now a day’s world community has given considerable attention to address climate change effects as the future of the planet depends on how the present generation takes steps to control climate change
issues. One of the major concerns that all of us in the world face is to control the rising temperature level of the planet, which is known as Global Warming. The world leaders agreed to reduce the global emission especially to limit the cumulative emissions of long-lived greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, and considerable reductions in other climate forcers. Even US President Joe Biden announced a sound plan to tackle climate change and he signed an executive order deals with climate change that is a very positive and welcome move towards addressing this global issue. During the fifty years due to improper human behaviour, the experts in the world indicated that greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide were produced leading to the increase of Earth’s temperature. We have evidenced about the rise of Earth’s temperature as we experienced more intense heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires, etc. causing much damage to the quality of life of the people and the economic growth of the countries as those activities, in turn, makes losses in biodiversity, crop failures, and infrastructure-related damages.
According to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this is mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels in power stations and our vehicles. As an effort towards limiting the rise of temperature well above 2°C, by the end of the century, a policy framework has already been framed and agreed upon as part of the Paris agreement and as a result, each country needs to submit their agreed National Determined Contributions (NDCs) to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and those are reviewed to check the compliance. This approach is designed as a voluntary measure to achieve the said objective as the scientific community noted that the rise of earth’s temperature well above 2°C, may lead to catastrophic and irreversible weather events causing much damage to the planet.
Moreover, the scientific community also noted that the ice-disappearing even in the North Pole and this trend continues then in future the Arctic will free of ice and that will have a major impact on climate paving the way that makes the Earth uninhabitable for most species, including us. We as Sri Lankans are also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change creating negative socio-economic outcomes in different sectors. Since we as humans are responsible for generating GHG emissions it is high time for us to look for sound ways and means as individuals and as a nation collectively to contribute to the reduction of GHG emissions as that would help to protect our planet for future generations to live happily.
Main GHG Gases and its Impact on Global Warming
The scientific community has pointed out that like carbon dioxide (CO2) other gases’ contributions are relatively important as those are also contribute considerably to increasing the Earth’s temperature. In other words, even though CO2 is a highly released GHG gas to the atmosphere other gases also important to consider due to the contributory effect of such gases on climate change. The details of the GHG gases and their main sources are given in the following table.
However, the scientific community found that Carbon Dioxide is the main contributor to raising the temperature of the earth, and normally it is sequestered from the atmosphere when it is absorbed by plants as part of the biological carbon cycle. We as humans need to provide support for effective implementation of the carbon cycle by carrying our activities in a well–behaved and disciplined manner by maintaining our forests and by planting trees and that create an ecological balance in the earth leading to a situation of emission reduction. Since this requires a well-focused approach, and that was made available to us as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and what we need to do is to understand those and to practice them to gain the expected benefits.
Setting the Stage- 17 Goals to protect Our Planet
To meet the threshold limit of global temperatures to 1.5 °C by 2030, the emissions need to be reduced by 7.6% every year but as per the UN Environment’s Emissions Gap Report 2019 the countries are not taking sufficient actions to achieve the said threshold.
As a global effort for all nations poor, middle-income and rich, to address climate change issues leading to sustainable development adopted seventeen sustainable development goals in the year 2015 at the United Nations General Assembly. Out of seventeen Sustainable Goals (SDGs), Goal number 13 is purely to cover climate change issues and it has nine (9) targets. All together under seventeen goals (17) there were one hundred and sixty-nine (169) targets were indicated. The beauty of these SDGs is they provide the guidance for nations for ending poverty and building economic growth that needs to be taken place simultaneously giving due consideration to the handling of climate change and environmental protection while addressing societal needs such as education, health, social protection, and job opportunities. The seventeen SDGs are given below:
To achieve these SDGs goals & targets requires a sound political will and commitment as these SDGs cut across the entire gamut of activities of a nation paving the way for sustainable development. In this regard to have sustainable growth, it is necessary to have a focused approach in a responsible manner covering social, environmental, and economic practices by having sound partnerships between the public and private sectors with a clear direction and mandate to address sustainable development by 2030. The interesting point to note is that ISO & IEC have developed and published standards for SDG goals making a significant contribution and any interested organization can use these standards to make their contribution as a way of supporting to achieve these SDGs.
Because the application of relevant standards provides a systematic approach of collecting the data related to the progress of the SDGs permitting government policymakers and development agencies and practitioners to make fact-based decisions. For instance, ISO has introduced seven standards for SDG 6- Clean water and sanitation, and some of them are ISO 15839 Water quality, ISO 20325 Service activities relating to drinking water supply and wastewater systems, ISO 24516-1 Drinking water distribution networks and ISO 14046 Water footprint. In the same manner for SDG 10- Reduce inequality also one of the famous ISO standards is ISO 26000-Social Responsibility. In the same manner, IEC has also introduced standards that are not addressed by the ISO. For instance, SDG 4 –Quality Education, IEC has introduced standards for hardware such as computers, mobile phones, displays, printers, etc. Moreover, SDG 6- Water and Sanitation IEC standards cover water extraction, desalination, purification, distribution, and use and wastewater management.
In furtherance, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has published a broad set of ITU-T Recommendations, which are usually implemented, because they guarantee the ensuring of the global communicational network coordination and provision of technical services. The Internet and its connected technologies are not properly used or do not have the skills to use by half of the world’s population and hence ITU is making a significant contribution by assisting countries to transition into the digital era as that would help to create a digital society to meet all 17SDGs.
Role of Standards and Climate Action (SDG 13)
As explained we can observe very clearly that SDG 13 is purely dedicated to climate change and that indicates the importance given to climate change and also considering the objectives of other SDGs we can see that those are also having an interrelationship withSDG13. It is very much clear that the SDGs have given us a very clear direction as a nation on what we need to do in achieving the required results. As discussed that SDG Goal 13 is purely covered climate action which indicates that “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” and in this regards standards have a multi-faceted role to play in handling climate change, from top governmental level, organizational levels, through to tactical applications at the project and even product levels.
It is a fact that industrialization has caused damage to the environment by releasing GHG gases because of the operation of industrial activities even though the industries contribute heavily to the economic growth of any nation. Hence industry can act as a change agent for having minimal damage to the environment while manufacturing the products by following environmentally-friendly (green) practices. It is worthwhile to note that most of the manufacturing facilities set ambitious goals to curtail carbon emissions and waste impacts of products etc. But the fact remains that just setting the scene would not bring in results unless it is properly established and systematically managed and monitored. One way of doing this is to use standards as those provide best practices to be followed within an organization to achieve its goals. Furthermore, the use of standards support to align trade policies, and overseas market development paving the way to have sustainable production giving preference to credibly certified goods
As a baseline inventory to tackle and control GHG emissions from the starting point of activities at the organizational level, ISO has developed and introduced several standards as ISO 1406 x some of those standards can even be applied at the individual level to address carbon footprint. For example, ISO 14064-1 for quantifying GHG emissions at the organizational level considering the organization’s boundaries. The use of these standards helps the organization level or individual level to capture GHG emission-related data in a very systematic manner so that it supports making the right decisions for regulatory bodies because of the development of a reliable data system.
It helps the government strategic level to make a policy framework to address the burning climate-related issues. Likewise, ISO 14065 provides a quality assurance framework for third-party validation and verification bodies. Moreover, the skills, knowledge, experience, and qualifications of personnel is a critical aspect of verification bodies, ISO 14066, in turn, specifies the competency requirements for such staff. Furthermore, ISO 14064-2 describes processes for quantifying, monitoring, and reporting GHG emission reductions or removal enhancements at the project level. For instance, ISO 14064-2 can be applied for a project of Reforestation for offsetting CO 2 emissions, in which trees are sinks or absorbers for CO2. In other words, using ISO 14064-2 the projected CO2 can be calculated. Likewise, ISO 14064-3 standard specifies requirements and guides verifying and validating reports of GHG emissions, reductions, and removals. Therefore ISO 1406x series of standards are very logical and connected like a chain of activities and therefore use of those standards pave the way to tackle climate change issues in a very systematic and scientific manner.
A way forward
All sectors of the economy require to take appropriate actions to reduce GHG emissions even though a considerable amount of GHG emissions are coming from the industry and agriculture sectors. Not only reducing or mitigating actions, but it is also very much important to take adaptation measures and those measures can be categorized as ‘soft” and “hard” measures. The soft measures include setting appropriate policies, training, developing early warning systems, or adopting new insurance policies. Also, hard measures include product, process changes, and infrastructure changes. We as Sri Lankan’s also can initiate adaptation measures depending on the situation in addition to the mitigation measures to address the GHG emission issues by using relevant appropriate standards. In this connection it is worthwhile to indicate ISO is in the process of formulation of the following standards to address the adaptation measures;
ISO 14090, Adaptation to climate change – Principles, requirements, and guidelines
ISO 14091, Adaptation to climate change – Vulnerability, impacts, and risk assessment, and
ISO 14092, GHG management, and related activities: requirement and guidance of adaptation planning for organizations including local governments and communities.
ISO has already published ISO 14090 standards and in the process of finalizing the other two standards. Therefore those standards once published can also be used for adaptation measures that help to take appropriate actions in a focused manner to get the best results. The beauty of these standards is they are non-linear and therefore irrespective of the size, type of activities, and whether it is already engaged in adaptive activities or not, the standards can be used. It is also possible to use standards to develop the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs)coherently and strategically.
Concluding Remarks
To have best practices within an organization using the standards should come from the top-level as a strategic direction then it will become a reality as it will help to develop a plan of action that provides the opportunity for the senior management for developing policies and awareness and capacity building of employees to implement green practices that would support to address the climate change issues while contributing to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals which finally help to protect the planet.
The world nations including Sri Lanka have developed their National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) to meet the requirements of the Paris Agreement. Normally these NAPS include the national commitments covering businesses and industry sectors actions and strategies. The important fact that we need to note is that ISO has facilitated this process also by introducing a series of International Standards with supporting guidelines as indicated in the previous section. The importance of these standards is those standards can use to address specific issues of climate change requirements to develop effective, efficient, and deliverable measures by having a pragmatic approach to prevent or mitigate the harm caused by climate change issues.
Hence the standards are available to use for mitigation and adaptation measures but to understand the contents and the application of these standards is important as that would help to achieve the best results. In this regard, the implementation of adaptation measures like training and awareness on the application and contents of these standards is very much important to enlighten the relevant authorities so that as Sri Lankans we can also contribute significantly to reduce GHG emissions leading to protect the earth.
It is always better to use internationally recognized best practices because Sri Lankans would also benefit from the implementation of these practices which are addressed in the International Standards and therefore obtaining an understanding of the requirements of these standards not only help to address the climate change issues in overall basis but also to support the burning issue of protecting the planet. Furthermore, this would help to create sustainable and environmentally friendly business enterprises which in turn support Sri Lanka to contribute effectively to the global effort of combating climate change issues.
The writer is retired Director General/CEO of the Sri Lanka Standards Institution.
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