BSI British Standards announces consultation on GHG emissions standard
Press release - 22 February 2008
BSI British Standards today announced the second stage of a consultation to continue the development of the Publicly Available Specification for the assessment of the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of goods and services. The standard, PAS 2050, is co-sponsored by the Carbon Trust and Defra.
This consultation is the second of a broad two-stage stakeholder consultation process on PAS 2050 and offers approximately one thousand UK and international organizations and individuals across a wide range of industries the opportunity to contribute to the development of the standard. Comments resulting from the consultation, which takes place over six weeks, will be reviewed by the PAS Steering Group and Project Team and may contribute to the final text of PAS 2050.
The wide stakeholder consultation on PAS 2050 draws on existing best practice to create a single standard that will enable a consistent approach to measuring the embodied greenhouse gas emissions from products and services across their lifecycle, and is applicable to a wide range of sectors and product categories. It is anticipated that this work could be a first step towards an internationally agreed standard for measuring greenhouse gas emissions from products and services.
The first stage of the consultation, which took place in October 2007, built on the experience in this subject area of approximately two hundred expert stakeholders. The results informed the further development of the standard.
In addition to the wide consultation stages, PAS 2050 has benefitted from input from expert work groups, support via commissioned research and insights arising from the Carbon Trust’s piloting of the draft standard with a range of organizations.
The development of PAS 2050 is being overseen by an independent Steering Group chaired by Jim Skea, Director of the UK Energy Research Centre, with members from businesses, NGOs, government and academia. PAS 2050 is due to be published in June 2008.
The Steering Group members are as follows:
• Chairman: Jim Skea, Director, UK Energy Research Centre
• Keith Allott - Head of Climate Change WWF
• Prof. Roland Clift - Professor of Environmental Technology, University of Surrey
• Terence Ilott - Head of Environment, Business and Consumers division, Defra
• Prof. Tim Jackson - Professor of Sustainable Development, University of Surrey
• Dr. Paul Jefferiss - Director of Environmental Policy, BP and board member of The Carbon Trust
• Mark Kenber - Policy Director, The Climate Group
• Nick Monger-Godfrey, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, John Lewis Partnership
• Stephen Reeson, Food and Drink Federation
• Michael Roberts, Director of Business Environment, CBI
• Ken Double, Energy Saving Trust
About The Carbon Trust
The Carbon Trust is an independent company set up by government in response to the threat of climate change, to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy by helping organisations reduce their carbon emissions and by developing commercial low carbon technologies. The Carbon Trust works with UK business and the public sector through its work in five complementary areas: insights, solutions, innovations, enterprises and investments. Together these help to explain, deliver, develop, create and finance low carbon enterprise.
The Carbon Trust is funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and Invest Northern Ireland.
For more information on the Carbon Trust visit www.carbontrust.co.uk or call the Carbon Trust Advice Line on 0800 085 2005.
About Defra
Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) is a UK Government Department established to enable everyone to live within their environmental means by tackling climate change internationally and through domestic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and securing a healthy, resilient, productive and diverse natural environment.
For more information about Defra visit www.defra.gov.uk
