Standards, Volume 2, Issue 1 (March 2022) – 8 articles

Environmental justice (EJ) is a broad discipline that attempts to understand and redress unfair exposure to unhealthy environmental conditions. EJ is often made measurable with indicators, however the capabilities and the limitations of EJ indicators can be difficult for policy makers to understand. Using an exploratory review of EJ literature, this paper performs a research translation role by clarifying the key terms used to describe EJ indicators and by providing conceptual frameworks for developing locally valid EJ indicators for government and community. Issues such as the position of EJ in the context of the social determinants of health, indicator development, and definitions are explored. The exploratory literature review highlighted the potential and limitations of EJ indicators for measuring the extent and impact of EJ issues on human health and the environment. We found that EJ indicators are invariably (1) composed of two or more measures, and (2) developed iteratively, in consultation with those affected. To aid governments and communities, we present both a top-down and a bottom-up framework for developing EJ indicators, with the bottom-up framework guiding the combination of measures from four different core elements; environment, demography, epidemiology and procedures. A list of evidence-based example measures, from the literature, for developing EJ indicators is also provided. It is anticipated that the frameworks and list of EJ example measures will provide guidance for efficiently developing locally relevant EJ indicators. Full article

Nanomaterials offer new technical and commercial opportunities but, due to their low particle size, raise occupational health and safety concerns and may also pose risks to the consumers and the environment. In the last 15 years, many standards have been developed in the area of nanotechnologies, taking into account, namely, occupational risk and safety. This paper presents an overview of the standards in this area, with special emphasis at the ISO level, but also at European level, where standards are considered as an important support for legislation. A brief presentation of five relevant ISO standards is included. Relevant European Standards are also mentioned. The control banding approach for occupational risk management applied to engineered nanomaterials, according to ISO/TS 12901-2:2014, is presented. Standards are essential for society and should, in fact, be considered an important tool for companies to support sustainable products and process innovation. Full article

The COVID-19 health crisis has disrupted various aspects of life: social, economic and work models in organizations, such as government organizations, private organizations, and businesses. To overcome this situation, a number of appropriate activities are needed to directly overcome the various problems in public health, both preventive and curative. In line with that, activities have also been taken to recover from the impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper describes the role of standardization in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the business process of formulation and development of standards, conformity assessment procedures, and the role of metrology in providing calibration services. Moreover, the role of the implementation of standards to overcome the socio-economic impact and innovation is also discussed. The method used in this report is based on observation and secondary data. The observation was carried out in Jakarta and surrounding cities, which are representatives of the islands of Java and Bali. A short overview of the literature regarding Coronavirus, the principal role of standardization, regulation, innovation, and its social-economic impact were obtained from secondary data from various sources. Full article

Seeking to reduce the number of inconsistencies in their processes, many organisations choose to implement the ISO 9001:2015 quality management standard. Their aim is to improve operational performance while, at the same time, they cope with increased pressures from the market to present innovative products and solutions and from the stakeholders to implement new organizational methods. This work intends to investigate how organisations can leverage ISO 9001:2015 in implementing the ISO 56002:2019 innovation management standard, given that both standards have a high degree of compatibility with each other. For that purpose, meetings were held with senior managers and quality managers of three Portuguese SMEs to discuss the existing potential challenges and gaps in the integration of both management systems. The results point to the existence of a significant set of practices in the field of quality that can support and facilitate the formalization of integrated management systems. Nevertheless, generalization of the results should be avoided, and more research is needed, since the integration of management systems is often conditioned by cost and time related issues. Furthermore, it is disputable whether a company can simultaneously reach a high level of efficiency (brought about by implementing a quality management system) and a high level of innovation (made possible by the implementation of an innovation management system) thus jeopardizing the implementation of an integrated management system. Full article

The International System of Quantities (ISQ) shall be used in education and textbooks, in scientific and engineering journals, in conference papers and proceedings, in industry, among others. The names of quantities together with their symbols and units are being published by the International Organization for Standardization, the standard ISO 80000 Quantities and units, composed of 13 parts. Mathematics and natural sciences (physics, light and radiation, acoustics, physical chemistry, atomic and nuclear physics, condensed matter physics) compose most of the parts. In addition, some engineering disciplines (mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism) and characteristic numbers are covered. The units are based on the International System of Units (SI). Unfortunately, chemical and process engineering, as well as environmental engineering and engineering economics, are not dealt with in the standard. In this paper, they are proposed as an additional part of the ISO standard with a tentative name Chemical and environmental engineering. The additional part of the standard is suggested to include (a) reaction and separation engineering together with mass transfer and reaction kinetics, (b) process design, control, and optimization, (c) process economics, mathematical modeling, operational research, and (d) environmental engineering with climate change, pollution abatement, an increase in resource efficiency, zero waste and circular economy. The number of quantities is planned but not limited to about 70, the average of ISO 80000 parts. Each quantity item contains a quantity name and definition (including an equation if suitable), SI unit, and remarks (running number will be added later). The rules are defined in ISO 80000-1 General rules, and the practice of the other ISO 80000 parts is respected; the quantities already included in the other parts are not repeated. In addition, the IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) Green Book rules are respected. The literature used included traditional textbooks, encyclopedias, handbooks from the chemical engineering and environmental fields. Some common mistakes in printing symbols of quantities and units are mentioned. Full article

Background: Palm oil mill workers in Malaysia are exposed to hazardous levels of noise in the workplace, and thus are at risk of developing noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). In 2019, Malaysia introduced a new noise regulation, which reduced the level of permissible noise exposure. Objectives: This study aims to determine the prevalence of NIHL among palm oil mill workers based on screening data and assess the effects of different noise exposure levels on NIHL. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted by analyzing data from noise risk assessment reports of selected mills and screening audiometric data from workers. NIHL was defined as bilateral high-frequency hearing loss. Results: The overall NIHL prevalence was 50.8%. Noise exposure level and age were significant predictors of NIHL among the workers. The risk of developing NIHL was high even for workers who were not categorized in the high-risk group. Conclusions: In view of the findings, a precautionary approach is needed when evaluating the risk of NIHL in the study population. Vulnerable groups of workers must be protected from occupational noise hazards through the implementation of effective hearing conservation programs in the workplace. Full article

In this feature paper, we introduce voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) and canvas the research that has been conducted on VSS from different academic disciplines. We identify four main areas of research on VSS and explore them. First, we focus on research on the institutional design of VSS, which highlights the diversity among VSS. Next, we explore studies that try to assess the impact of VSS on key sustainability dimensions. Third, we zoom in on studies that analyse the uptake or adoption of VSS. Finally, we focus on the interaction between VSS and public policies. For each of the four areas, we summarise the main research findings and identify opportunities for future research. Full article

The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT), which is an architecture in which devices supplied by various firms and services operated by distributed organizations exchange data, has been adopted in an increasing number of situations. While there are cases in which a small number of limited organizations collaborate on certain ecosystems based on proprietary specifications, the development of open standards is increasingly important for building scalable ecosystems because of the introduction of the concepts of Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0. Under these circumstances, there are two types of barriers to standardization. One barrier is the lack of shared frames for architectural design. The other barrier is the lack of awareness of the need for scalability. In this paper, we analyze the factors underlying these two barriers and discuss the path towards breakthroughs. Full article