New ISO standards guide circular economy transition with unified terms and business models
10 Jul 2024 --- The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) introduces three new voluntary standards to promote the circular economy for personal care.
The non-governmental standard developer says ISO 59004 (principles and terminology), ISO 59010 (business model transition) and ISO 59020 (circularity performance measurement) were created to provide guidelines to help businesses develop, strengthen their circular strategies and standardize terminology.
Paris-based developer of international standardization AFNOR (Association française de normalisation) says the standards emphasize the importance of value sharing and energy recovery while making circular practices more attractive and sustainable. It believes that despite its perceived inevitability, transitioning to a circular economy is complex and requires a common understanding.
“We talk about waste, end of life or recycling rates, but not everyone puts the same thing behind these formulas,” says Roger Ebengou, Environment and Circular Economy director for Europe at the Michelin group, who participated in drafting ISO 59004.
“If we don’t speak the same language, we will never have indicators to share. However, the circular economy is based by nature on our ability to work with other value chains, like an ecosystem.”
ISO 59004 brings clarity
ISO 59004 aims to create a shared vocabulary, facilitating better collaboration across value chains.
According to ISO, the guidelines clarify fundamental ideas, provide a vision for a circular economy, define important terms and concepts and provide advice for taking concrete steps toward sustainability. The standard seeks to help organizations in supporting the United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development by smoothing the shift to a circular resource use model.
Research engineer Anne-Sophie Coince at Electric Power Generation co-led the working group that created ISO 59004. She points out the importance of preserving realistic applications of circular economy ideas and has now “integrated the principle of ecosystem regeneration.”
The new ISO standards aim to standardize terminology, facilitating better collaboration across value chains.ISO 59010 for sustainable business
ISO 59010 is said to enhance ISO 59004 by providing more thorough instructions on evaluating the models of value creation that are currently in use, mapping value chains and value networks and creating circularity strategies.
ISO 59010 is designed to assist organizations in making this transition, promoting sustainable business practices and a resilient global economy.
The third, ISO 59020 seeks to standardize the process of organizations collecting and calculating data using mandatory and optional circularity indicators, ensuring consistent and verifiable results, says ISO.
AFNOR notes that French regulations, including the 2020 anti-waste law, support the new standards and provide recognition signs for businesses that adhere to good circular economy principles.
The new standards focus on the principle of shared value creation. “We know that when we close the energy-material flows in a territory, there can be winners and losers. We must be vigilant on this point to make the implementation attractive and sustainable,” says Coince.
“Some experts wanted it to be removed from the scope of the circular economy, but it was important to integrate it, particularly for countries that store waste in the open air: for them, burning it and recovering the heat generated is already a big step.”
By Venya Patel
