Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
trols. Standards attract professionals and firms
engaged in development and administration of
environmental testing. Standards underlie the
deployment of sensor networks for environmental
monitoring. Standards also drive the development
of attestation programs that administer environ-
mental certifications. In the future, environmental
standards are poised to spur investment by firms
pursuing business models for sustainable growth
and green technologies. Therefore, environmen-
tal standards lie at the heart of financing green,
sustainable and environmentally-aware technolo-
gies as well as their deployment in potentially
successful business models by a wide variety of
firms throughout the world.
Despite the prevalence of environmental-
related standards, the institutional framework for
environmental standardization remains a complex
and widely misunderstood political process. Stan-
dardization is a unique fusion of technology design
and public policy development involving vari-
ous constituencies: industrial and transportation
firms, environmentalists, technology developers,
legislatures, regulators, standards-setting bodies,
upstream suppliers, downstream users, and the
affected communities in society. International
treaties and accords increasingly obligate nations
to implement environmental design through pol-
lution controls as well as establish metrics for
testing, monitoring, and certification. Given the
political difficulties of achieving multi-lateral
consensus on detailed environmental standards
through national legislative or regulatory bodies,
environmental standardization will be undertaken
in a wide variety of venues, both government-
related and industry-related.
This chapter provides a unique perspective
on the implementation of government-inspired
environmental standards to drive sustainability in
these varied venues, standards-setting organiza-
tions (SSO), hereinafter standards development
organizations (SDO). While much of this chapter's
focus is on the environmental standardization
of the U.S. is predicted to affect standardization
in other nations and in international environmen-
tal SDOs. Therefore, examples of international
standardization are also presented to illustrate the
complexity of environmental standardization. The
active, successful management of environmental
standardization activities are essential to the de-
velopment of sustainable business models in all
aspects of industrial processes, transportation,
green finance and third party environmental moni-
toring and certification. Many of these firms will
operate in various nations and their products will be
produced and marketed in other nations. Disregard
of the risks of environmental standardization will
significantly imperil the competitiveness of envi-
ronmental industries because the measurement of
compliance with environmental-related standards
is the quintessential evaluation criteria for accept-
able sustainable designs and green performance.
This chapter is organized to provide a logical
development of the standardization process in
general then moves to acquaint the reader with
the legal and regulatory difficulties encountered
by standardization, such as in the areas of anti-
trust, intellectual property (IP) and democratic
principles of public participation. Standardization
examples from environmental fields are inte-
grated throughout as are classic standardization
precedents from other fields. Finally, the chapter
concludes with a capstone discussion of emerging
issues for research and practice in environmental
standardization.
BACKGROUND
The industrial revolution of the nineteenth century
was among the most disruptive forces in economic
history (NAS 1995). The green revolution for
sustainability may be similarly disruptive because
both the industrial and green revolutions are
transitions with similar consequences: a robust
global economy was enabled largely by reduc-
