ISO 20121 has reached the next stage in its development to become an international standard in sustainability for the event industry and the level of international engagement is increasing. The standard will be produced by a new ISO project committee, ISO/PC 250, Sustainability in event management.

The decision to advance to the third of five steps of the ISO process was made during the PC’s second meeting in Paris, held between the 26th and 28th of April. The meeting included experts from Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, France, Japan, Norway, Spain, Sweden, UK, USA in attendance and Canada and Germany via weblink. Experts present from the organizations in liaison with the committee including Meeting Professionals International, The Green Meetings Industry Council and The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI).

There are over 30 countries involved as participants and observers who can participate in the development of the various drafts and submit comments which are addressed during meetings. Each country can create a mirror committee of experts who will review and contribute to the work done during the meetings.


QUOTE FROM YOUR OWN REPRESENTATIVE TALKING ABOUT YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN THE PROCESS
e.g. .a UK expert stated: ‘During this working meeting we reviewed and addressed over 500 comments submitted by the mirror committees. The UK mirror committee has over 30 members and the process of working with experts from other countries mirror committees has been extremely interesting’
THIS COULD INCLUDE INFORMATION ON YOUR MIRROR COMMITTEE

The standard (ISO 20121) will be applicable to any organization working within the event industry and it will take a management systems approach requiring identification of key sustainability issues like venue selection, operating procedures, supply chain management, procurement, communications, transport, and others.


Fiona Pelham, Chair of ISO/PC 250, commented: “The international experts have made significant contribution to the development of ISO 20121 and the general consensus is that ISO 20121 will be a strong, useful and useable international standard.”

The creation of ISO 20121 used the British Standard (BS 8901) as the starting draft and other national standards have been referred to during the development of the International Standard.

National Standards are developed within a geographical boundary, while sometimes calling on broader consultation, and are highly relevant to a region/sector. ISO is the global standards developer, bringing together all of its member bodies and their experts to developed relevant standards via a well established consensus processes. Both National and ISO standards support each other and there are examples of national standards being the seed for international standardization and consensus building across the globe.

It is expected that the standard will increase transparency through the event management industry. ISO 20121 is expected to be finalized in 2012 to coincide with the London Olympics.

source:
Bulgarian Institute for Standardization (BDS)