19 October 2021
Sebastiaan Van Dort, Associate Director of Energy and Sustainability Standards at BSI said:
“We welcome the new measures set out in the government’s Net Zero Strategy, providing a vision for a decarbonized economy by 2050. It is clear that a successful transition will require science-based and consensus-led standards to ensure commitments can be met.
BSI is working closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to support the implementation of the strategy in our role as the UK National Standards Body. Standards play an important role in enabling and accelerating the transition to a net zero economy. They provide clear and practical guidance for businesses and other organizations to mitigate and adapt to climate change, safe in the knowledge they are following consensus agreed best practice.
BSI recently led the development of the London Declaration, an international commitment to ensure that global standards will actively support climate action and advance international initiatives to achieve global climate goals. Approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) members, the London Declaration commits 165 national standards bodies to embed key climate considerations into every new standard and retrospectively add these requirements to all existing standards. It will also facilitate the involvement of civil society and those who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the development of all international standards and publications.
The Energy Smart Appliances (ESAs) Programme demonstrates how standards support UK government’s transformational plans. Smart appliances like EV chargepoints can make electricity demand more responsive to the availability of renewable energy, helping to reach net zero sooner by providing flexibility to the energy system and enabling consumers to be involved in managing demand in the electricity system. The standards provide essential guidance and good practice for this fast-moving industry to roll out ESAs safely and responsibly, whilst helping protect consumers from data and privacy risks.
Another example of how standards support the transition is the UK-government backed Faraday Battery Challenge programme. Standards are helping the rapidly evolving battery production, recycling, and research sectors to work together in a more environmentally friendly and safe way.
Over time we expect that the combination of the new strategy underpinned by standardization will bring a wide-spread change of practice to UK organizations. BSI will continue to work closely with government, industry and consumers to ensure that climate-friendly and consensus-based standards become the norm across all industries, seamlessly accelerating the transition to net zero.”
