Through the Green Deal, the European Commission has set a series of ambitious goals to transition towards a fully green economy and reach the global climate target of net zero by 2050. To reach these objectives, all actors involved will have to rethink the way to produce and consume, the way our infrastructures work, the use of resources and the functioning of transportation systems.
CEN and CENELEC, as two of the officially recognised European Standardization Organizations (ESOs), know that European Standards (ENs) have a key role to play in making the Green Deal reality. This role, acknowledged by the European Green Deal itself, is presented in the newly-published position paper “Standards in support of the European Green Deal Commitments”.
In particular, the paper presents some recommendations to European policy maker, in order to reap the greatest advantage from European standards:
- Make use of European and international standards to support the European Green Deal actions and initiatives;
- Establish clear overarching principles to guide policy making, that prioritise reduced emissions and reuse of materials, and clear links between the sustainability performance and incentives.
- Request technical standards for specifying the technical details for manufacturers and suppliers to meet legal requirements.
- Identify early on the type of standards needed to support the European Green Deal actions, which can be mapped against existing standards, and identify gaps which need to be addressed through new standard developments.
- Request the development of new standards, or the revision of existing ones, by the ESOs.
- Integrate standardization in European framework programmes aiming to implement the European Green Deal.
Together with these recommendations, the Policy Paper also provides a sector-by-sector analysis of how standardization can support the priorities areas of the European Green Deal, and a detailed mapping of technical work against Green Deal headings.
