Each year on 14 October, the members of the IEC, ISO and ITU celebrate World Standards Day, which is a means of paying tribute to the collaborative efforts of the thousands of experts worldwide who develop the voluntary technical agreements that are published as international standards.
Standards have the capacity to provide the social and business connections within economies and between countries by providing reliable modes of communication, codes of practice and trusted frameworks for cooperation. International Standards can provide common interpretations on reciprocal sides of a communication or transaction, standards are essential to mutually beneficial trade and resource efficient international commerce.
Social interaction relies on common respect for fundamental sets of norms, concepts or meanings – international standards codify these norms to ensure that they are accessible to all.
So at a simple level, a product or service conforming to an international standard is imbued with a trusted symbol of quality, safety or compatibility. Standards speak to the diversity of our interconnected world, introducing uniformity at the interfaces where we need to be certain that we are speaking on the same terms.
It is this diversity and the wealth of opportunities of International Standards, which will be celebrated on World Standards Day on Friday, 14 October 2016.
The once a year opportunity to celebrate the role of International Standards is timely to share your views on how International Standards to improve your business and the environment?