Sergio Mújica, secretary general of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), briefly visited Spain and took the opportunity to outline the guidelines of this organization for the future.
What plans does ISO have for the coming years?
ISO has approved a new strategy that is aligned with the sustainable development goals. When talking about technical standards, people normally focus on the requirements, specifications, technical content and what we have tried is to turn it around and put people at the center of our value proposition. The vision we have defined for 2030 aims to make people’s lives easier and safer.
Is it being achieved? We have a situation of growing geopolitical and commercial tension between the major world blocs.
We are not doing very well. A United Nations report from June says that only 15% of specific SDG targets are up to date. There are 37% that are stagnant or have even regressed, but we are convinced, as an international organization with our 172 members, that we must support the implementation of the SDGs.
We are on a very transformative agenda, trying to work on standards associated with sustainability and climate change in particular. We are also trying to make a very important contribution in artificial intelligence. A few weeks ago the United Nations released the report of its high-level group where it clearly expressed that there is a deficiency in the international governance of artificial intelligence and calls on international standardization organizations to better coordinate their work and establish annual summits. to exchange information and provide a more coherent solution at a global level.
What do you expect from the next COP29?
We do not participate in the negotiation, what we do is talk to governments to ensure that among the tools at their disposal is the possibility of using international standards. We are doing something very revolutionary for this COP29, since for the first time we are going with a unified pavilion of the standardization organizations where we do not bring individual voices, but rather collective voices telling the negotiators to use international standards. One of the risks we see is reinventing the wheel. That creative solutions be made from things that already exist and that have a high level of consensus. This is a key message: let’s use the rules that already exist today.
The second is also that they count on us to create new standards where necessary. We are a platform that generates a high level of trust and acceptance among users because when creating ISO standards it is not a conversation behind closed doors of a small group of experts, but a very broad conversation, where there are interested parties from the private sector, the Government, the Academy of consumers and, very importantly, developing countries. We actively have within our strategy to promote the participation of developing countries.
And third is the evaluation of conformity because one of the problems that exists is ‘greenwashing’ (ecopostureo). We must ensure that all these net zero declarations have a real basis that can generate credibility in users and a level of mutual recognition because international trade is also paralyzed if we are going to be doubling or tripling the different controls or certifications when they simply pass. from one country to another. The recognition and trust that can be generated is essential.
Can norms be a tool against denialism or misinformation?
Absolutely, in the end it is about giving credibility to compliance claims. That credibility is done through a system that is serious and demonstrable. I repeat, we do not do politics in the police sense, that is, we are not going to tell you what is green or what is not green, but we are going to tell you how to measure and give credibility to everyone. Then the politicians will decide what is green or what is not.
Are you already working on a standard?
In terms of sustainability, for example, we are working on a net zero management standard which is very important. A few years ago we already launched some guides, but the management of Net Zero is a very serious thing, because we are no longer talking about compensations. The goal is to reach zero, which means reducing everything that can be reduced. We are generating a standard that does not seek to reinvent the wheel, but rather to connect the different regulatory frameworks that exist today in a more understandable, integrated and convergent way so that it can be easily understood by SMEs, which are some of those that could eventually suffer with regulations that they do not understand or that they are difficult to apply.
Do you assess in the governance standards whether it is better to have an executive president or one who only leads the boards of companies?
We don’t make those types of assessments. What we do is identify the best international practices. We do not define whether one model is better than the other, but rather the practices themselves adjust to the recommendations. Our standards are not mandatory, they are recommendations for the application of best international practice in governance regardless of the specific model that I am using. What we try to generate is a system that is complementary, that is, the definition of public policy and the creation of regulations.
How does ISO’s collaboration with the Spanish Association for Standardization (UNE) work?
UNE has a clear leadership role within the ISO system, being in its two most important dimensions: both in the governing bodies and in the technical bodies. In the first of them, the general director of UNE, Javier García, is the vice president of Technical Management of ISO, having recently been re-elected for a new two-year term. In the technical field, Spain participates in practically 90% of the ISO technical standardization committees, a very high and satisfactory percentage and this is very important. In addition, experts from Spanish companies lead fifty technical standardization bodies.
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