Have you seen that US show Ace of Cakes? It is all about a crazy group of people that make absolutely incredible cakes in Baltimore. During one episode one of the cake decorators when asked what her favorite saying is said it came from a fortune cookie she had a few years back that said “The good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from”.
Same goes in the field of sustainability. There are an ever growing range of sustainability standards that companies can choose from. Is this a bad thing? Not at all. Standards shows that things are moving forward in this area, that there are guidelines to help businesses to start to move forward in this area.
The International Organization of Standards provides a range of standards in this area. They are voluntary, auditable standards designed to provide customers with a resonable assurance that the performance claims of a company are accurage. Each standard is reviewed at least every five years and cover environmental management systems, environmental auditing, evaluation of environmental performance, environmental labeling, life cycle assessment, green house gas accounting and verification, social reponsibility.
For more visit www.iso.org.
