ISO and the Consumer –

Have Your Say
By Julia Opie

If you have ever had a burning desire to have an influence on the development of standards, the door is open.

It is the consumer who drives the market, with expectations about the design, performance, safety, quality and reliability of the products and services that they use. ISO standards support the development and trade of products and services which better meet consumers’ expectations.

Standards often define the characteristics of products and services, and the way to measure them.  Consumers wish to influence these characteristics so that products and services provide higher levels of:

• quality and reliability
• protection of safety and health
• compatibility between products
• consistency in the delivery of services
• choice of goods and services
• transparency in product information
• fair competition, hence lower prices for consumers
• suitability of products for vulnerable populations (children, the elderly)
• environmental protection

When the end product or service meets the consumer’s requirements, this creates a win-win situation – both for the consumer and manufacturer or service provider.

The importance of the "user" perspective in the production of market-driven standards is now recognized regardless of a country's level of development.

Consumers can contribute in many ways, for example:

• by providing data on safety aspects and ensuring that safety is properly addressed;
• by giving examples of how products and services are actually used (or misused) in practice;
• by checking that the performance requirements and test methods reflect the way products and services are actually used.

Consumers lend their unique perspective to the creation of the voluntary standards that define products and services used in everyday life.

As a consumer representative you can participate in meetings of national or international technical committees where standards are developed.

The consumer representative’s role is to ensure that the standards being developed address issues of concern to consumers. These may include some of the following: health, safety, performance, ergonomics, quality, reliability, comfort, environmental protection, ease-of-use, compatibility and interoperability.

No particular background is required - though an interest in, and some knowledge of, the subject area is helpful - just a willingness to read and understand the issues, and get your voice heard by participating.

You can begin by:

• Contacting your national consumers’ association. Consumer associations often cooperate with national standards bodies, or with larger consumer groups, or both. If not, encourage your consumer association to do so!

• Contacting the ISO member body in your country. This body is the representative national standards body of your country. In Canada, contact the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) www.scc.ca . In the USA, you would contact the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) www.ansi.org

• Contacting national and regional consumer associations. Consumers International www.consumersinternational.org is the worldwide organizations for consumer groups.

• Contacting the SIO committee on Consumer Policy (COPOLCO). COPOLCO members are the members of ISO – national standard bodies – which join COPOLCO and designate a person who is responsible for consumer liason. This person usually comes from the ISO member but may come from a member-appointed national consumer association.

Source: http://www.iso.org