Standards make the world go round –World Standards Day 14 Oct

Standards make the world go round – World Standards Day 14 October 2011

The standardisation of containers in the last century meant that they could be shipped and handled virtually anywhere in the world. Today, it is estimated that over 20 million interoperable containers are used to move about 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide.

This year’s World Standards Day on 14 October 2011 is themed ‘International Standards – creating confidence globally’.

Standards New Zealand’s Chief Executive, Debbie Chin, said confidence came from trust, safety, minimal risk, quality assurance, reliability, certainty, efficiency, and effectiveness, all of which are offered by Standards.

‘International Standards give manufacturers confidence to reach out to global markets safe in the knowledge that their product will perform globally.

‘A particularly significant issue was the crisis caused by milk adulterated with melamine, which affected thousands of children in 2008 and which shook consumer confidence. In 2010, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Dairy Federation published a testing Standard to determine the content of melamine and cyanuric acid in milk, powdered milk products and infant formulae. This Technical Specification (TS) ensured the integrity and safety of tested milk and derivative products and restored consumer confidence.’

‘And it is not just products and equipment that these qualities apply to. Today, Standards are also applied to such wide-ranging areas as the environment, worker safety and management, social responsibility, energy management, road traffic safety management systems, and risk management.

‘One of the biggest-selling International Standards, ISO 31000:2009 Risk management – Principles and guidelines, was the first ever-international document on managing risk to be developed by consensus. This International Standard, the forerunner of which was a joint Australian/New Zealand Standard, helps organisations to confidently address risk and has been adopted by many major global economies and emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China

‘Also, an international carbon footprint Standard is in development and will provide a standardised approach to calculate and communicate carbon footprint, a much more robust approach than using food miles. ISO 14067, to be published in the next 2 years, will create confidence that reliable information is provided on the carbon footprint of products, and will influence New Zealand’s marketing of export products.’

‘World Standards Day acknowledges the thousands of experts worldwide who collaborate with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and ITU (the United Nations specialised agency for information and communication technologies – ICTs) to develop these international Standards.’

(Note: Standards New Zealand is the New Zealand member and New Zealand representative for two (ISO and IEC) of these three international Standards bodies.)

Note: A World Standards Day image is available on request. The World Standards Day image is created by Caterine Fionani from Italy, who won the World Standards Day poster competition. Read more about this image.

About Standards New Zealand

Standards New Zealand is the operating arm of the Standards Council, and part of New Zealand’s standards and conformance infrastructure. Standards New Zealand is an autonomous Crown entity responsible for managing the development and distribution of Standards across a range of sectors nationally.

Standards New Zealand is a self-funded, not-for-profit organisation, relying on revenue primarily from contracts with sponsors to develop Standards, and from sales of Standards publications. Our independence helps us facilitate a cross section of stakeholders’ contributions to the development of Standards, and ensure that each Standard meets the needs of end users. www.standards.co.nz

ENDS

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