World Environment Day has been held on 5 June every year since it was established by the UN in 1974.
The technical standards provide companies with environmental protection. Therefore, there are nearly 1,000 standards in the catalogue of the Spanish Association for Standardization, UNE, which help organisations to successfully overcome their major environmental and sustainability challenges, in fields such as climate change, circular economy, labelling, environmental parameter measurement, efficient use of water, ecodesign or improving energy efficiency.
They also support public administrations in implementing regulations; in fact, the EU action plan for the Circular Economy, the EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change or the Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Directives are examples in which the EU uses standardisation to ensure compliance with its policies.
For example, the new Standard UNE 149002 establishes criteria and requirements to identify whether or not products are biodegradable and degradable and, as a result, whether or not they can be disposed of in the toilet, which makes it possible to have environmentally conscious and high quality disposable products.
Standards are documents accessible to all that contain the market consensus on good practices, contributing to promoting a sustainable development model. Standards are reliable and agreed tools to improve the environmental performance of organisations and their products and services.
One of the standards that applies to organizations in all industries is UNE-EN ISO 14001 on Environmental Management, which contributes to combating environmental impact.
Within the field of energy efficiency is Standard UNE-EN-ISO 50001 on Energy Management, which helps organisations manage and reduce energy use.
Within the carbon footprint field, Standard UNE-ISO 14064-1 establishes the criteria by which to quantify and report on greenhouse gas emissions and removal.
