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It is a fact that ISO standards contribute to the world we live in positively, ensuring the vital features such as quality, ecology, safety, economy, reliability, compatibility, interoperability, efficiency and effectiveness. The ISO standards facilitate trade, spread knowledge, and share technological advances and good management practices. In order the above statement to be true, the number of the issued standards is impressive as well as the number of people that have contributed and the number of the liaisons with international and national organizations that have been established.
Specifically, ISO has a current portfolio of over 18 600 standards. The ISO standardization system comprises the national standards institutes of some 160 countries, nearly 3 280 technical groups, 50 000 experts who participate directly in developing standards, with input from another 300 000. Moreover, ISO benefits from partnerships with over 700 international and regional organizations, including the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations system and its specialized agencies and commissions, particularly those involved in the harmonization of regulations and public policies.
Social responsibility, information and societal security, response to climate change, energy efficiency and renewable resources, sustainable building design and operation, fair and transparent contract procurement, water services, nanotechnologies, intelligent transport systems, food safety management, and health informatics are some of the topics that ISO standards have been addressed to in the recent years.
In the next few years, ISO will be able to offer new standards addressing a wide range of issues such as the carbon footprint of products, asset management, energy savings, human resource management, natural gas fuelling stations for vehicles, outsourcing, the safety of amusement park attractions, and biogas.
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