NEWS

For more than 30 years, CEN/TC 144 'Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry' has been producing standards in the service of agriculture, forestry and gardening activities. CEN/TC 144, whose Secretariat is held by AFNOR, the French national standardization committee, is currently developing 50 projects that are geared towards machine safety and operator protection, taking into account the protection of the environment, technological innovations and efficiency needs.

The functioning of society depends on the transportation of goods and persons. The infrastructure required to enable transportation is built to ensure that this can happen safely and smoothly, providing specified high levels of service.

The EN ISO 15883 series, jointly developed under the Vienna agreement by ISO/TC 198 and CEN/TC 102, describes the design and functionality of washer-disinfectors (WD), used to disinfect medical tools.  Part 1 of the series specifies general design requirements, process specifications and validation methods for all kinds of washer-disinfectors. The subsequent parts focus on the design of particular devices, processing special load including particular specifications of the processing process, such as requirements for the thermal processing of surgical instruments or the chemo-thermal processing of flexible endoscopes.

To accelerate the development of alternative fuels, multifuel stations integration is fundamental. CEN and CENELEC developed the new Guide 38 to facilitate the integration of alternative fuels at existing fuelling stations and to give guidance to design, authorise and operate new multifuel stations in support of the Directive 2014/94/EU on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure and of the future Regulation replacing the directive. This CEN and CENELEC Guide also considers other legislations impacting multifuel stations (ATEX, PED, MID). 

CEN is happy to announce the recent publication of a new technical report, CEN/TR 17698 ‘Ergonomics - Demands and Availability of anthropometric and strength data of children in Europe’. This TR is based on the results of a project on anthropometric and strength data of children in Europe (funded by the European Commission). Its objective is to help relevant stakeholders to identify and possibly acquire the anthropometric and strength data they need to make their products or services.

Improving the way to measure particulate emissions of road vehicles, and thus contributing to reducing transport pollution? This is now possible, thanks to recently published standard EN 17507 ‘Road vehicles - Portable Emission Measuring Systems (PEMS) - Performance assessment’.

From counting calories to tracing COVID-19, there are hundreds of thousands of health and wellness apps on the market, and appetite for them is only growing. However, many have access to highly sensitive personal information, whilst others may offer advice that is not always supported by scientific evidence. In order to effectively evaluate the quality and reliability of such apps, a new technical specification has just been published. 

At the core of the European Green Deal lies the ambition to make Europe the world's first climate-neutral continent by 2050. As the latest development in this sector, on 14 July the European Commission adopted a package of proposals to make the EU's policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 and make Europe climate neutral by 2050. Energy efficiency is one of the pillars of the Green Deal, articulated trough the improvement of the energy performance of buildings and the increased use of renewable energies.

Cybersecurity is crucial in today’s world, as our society increasingly relies on connected infrastructure and devices. In the field of railways, connected trains and infrastructure are seen as a major source of improvement for the management of traffic and capacity, energy efficiency, and network communication. But this trend also means more potential threats of cyber-attacks. To protect the rolling stock and fixed installations, the support of adequate tools and requirements is needed.

In May 2021, CEN/TC 282 'Installation and equipment for LNG', whose Secretariat is held by AFNOR, the French National Standardization Body, published a new edition of EN 1473:2021  'Installation and equipment for liquefied natural gas - Design of onshore installations'.