On the occasion of COP26, CEN and CENELEC released the new policy paper “Uniting the world to tackle climate change: COP26 and the commitments of European Standards”. In the document, the two European Standardization Organizations reaffirm their commitment to contributing to the fight against climate change and raise awareness on the actions they are taking to contribute to addressing these challenges.

In particular, the policy paper highlights the role of standards in contributing to the green transition: “Standards foster the process of innovation and encourage the faster development of more environmentally friendly technologies and materials. Whether it is by specifying tests or providing robust definitions that avoid misleading environmental claims, standards have a key role to play in addressing the climate emergency.”

Based on this potential, the standardization community stands ready to play their part in ensuring that both Europe and the world are equipped to deliver the social and economic transition necessary to reduce the effects of climate change, while also helping to deliver the infrastructure necessary to increase the planet’s resilience to adapt to its impacts. The full text of the Policy Paper is available here.

The functioning of society depends on the transportation of goods and persons. The infrastructure required to enable transportation is built to ensure that this can happen safely and smoothly, providing specified high levels of service. As Europe has already experienced on many occasions, reductions in service due to potentially disruptive events, such as floods, earthquakes, heavy snow falls, fog, high winds, or cyberattacks can have significant societal consequences.

In this context, transport infrastructure managers must minimize the impact and potential consequences of these disruptive events. To do so, objective information on the service provided by their transport infrastructure and its resilience to external adverse events is necessary. In order to help them acquire this information, in November CEN and CENELEC published new CWA 17819:2021 'Guidelines for the assessment of resilience of transport infrastructure to potentially disruptive events'. This document provides managers with guidance to proceed a complete and systematic definition of service and measure resilience, in all situations with which the manager is confronted, and to help identify the suitable interventions to enhance such resilience.

CWA 17819:2021 is freely available for download here. It was developed by CEN/CLC/WS 018 ‘Assessment of the resilience of transport infrastructure to potentially disruptive events’, whose Secretariat is held by UNE, Spain’s National Standardization Institute.

Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), national standard development body of India, has published Indian Standard IS 17802-"Accessibility for ICT Products and Services, Part 1: Requirements" which is a technical adoption of European Standard EN 301 549 v3.2.1 as developed by CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. Modifications to Indian Standards have been made to adapt it to India and are limited to referencing the relevant regulatory context (Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016) and the official languages of India. Part-2 for this Indian Standards published, to determine the conformity assessment is under formulation at BIS.

To accelerate the development of alternative fuels, multifuel stations integration is fundamental. CEN and CENELEC developed the new Guide 38 to facilitate the integration of alternative fuels at existing fueling stations and to give guidance to design, authorize and operate new multifuel stations in support of the Directive 2014/94/EU on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure and of the future Regulation replacing the directive. This CEN and CENELEC Guide also considers other legislations impacting multifuel stations (ATEX, PED, MID). 

This new Guide is the result of a brilliant collaborative work led in the Working Group "Multifuel stations" of the CEN and CENELEC Sector Forum Gas Infrastructure, with experts of different technical committees involved in various fuels (natural gas, hydrogen, LPG). A large consultation was conducted to all the relevant CEN and CENELEC Technical Committees (CEN-CLC/JTC 6, CEN/TC 301, CLC/TC 69X, CEN/TC 268, CEN/TC 286, CEN/TC 326, CEN/TC 393, and CEN/TC 408) and coordination group (CEN-CLC/eMCG). Through Guide 38, the technical committees involved in the standardization of alternative fuels infrastructure will have a better view on how to ensure the global coherence of the integrated infrastructure when developing their respective standards.

Following its cartoon “Standards@Rail”, CEN & CENELEC conclude the European Year of Rail with a new campaign to share with the European citizens the importance of European standards in the daily life of trains and railways infrastructure.  

In each video, railways experts of CEN/TC 256 ‘Railways applications’ and CLC/TC 9X ‘Electrical and electronic applications for railways’ present to the public a selection of European standard that directly contributes to a safe, efficient, and resilient railways network in Europe: from cybersecurity and wheels to driver's cab displays, aerodynamic or hydrogen refuelling. With these videos, the European citizens can better understand the role of these standards to overcome the current and future challenges met by the railways industry and operators to facilitate the everyday life of travellers and freight transport

The European Committee of Standardization (CEN), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) renewed their cooperation agreement for further five years. Through the agreement, the three organizations aim to enhance the exchange of knowledge and expertise between scientific research and European standardization. The JRC and the European Committee of Standardization look back on a fruitful collaboration of more than 30 years, with its first agreement signed in 1994. The renewal of the collaboration with JRC, initiated in 2016, will continue to provide European and international standardization with scientific input and it will build on lessons learnt and successes achieved. 

One of the main initiatives developed jointly by CEN, CENELEC and JRC is Putting-Science-Into-Standards (PSIS), which aims to facilitate the identification of emerging science and technology areas that could benefit from standardization activities. The PSIS initiative has proven to be a successful example of foresight aimed at the timely identification of new sectors where standardization can enable innovation and promote industrial competitiveness.

Every year on 14 October, the international standardization community celebrates World Standards Day. This year’s edition “Our shared vision for a better world” is dedicated to how standards support the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (SDGs). The 17 SDGs are ambitious objectives stated in 2015 by the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They aim, among other issues, to address social imbalances, develop a sustainable economy, and slow the rate of climate change. To be achieved, the SDGs require the cooperation of many public and private partners, and the use of all available tools. In this context, standards, and standardization organizations such as CEN and CENELEC, have an important role to play. Voluntary, consensus-based standards can provide valuable solutions to complex, global challenges.