World Standards Day 2020 - Protecting the planet with standards

World Standards Day is an opportunity to pay tribute to the collaborative efforts of the thousands of experts worldwide who develop the voluntary technical agreements that are published as standards. World Standards Day is also a great opportunity to make a broader audience aware of the role Standards play in international trade and evervyday life. 

To reduce human impact on our planet, we need the political will, concrete action and the right tools. Standards are one such tool. Standards prepared by different standardization organisations take into account tried and tested solutions to technical challenges. They help share expertise and expert know-how broadly within developed and developing countries alike. Standards cover all aspects of energy savings, water and air quality. They lay down standardized protocols and methods of measurement. Their broad use helps reduce the environmental impact of industrial production and processes, facilitates the reuse of limited resources and improves energy efficiency.

Every year IEC, ISO, and ITU invite artists from around the world through an online social media contest to participate in illustrating what Standards do for our world. This year's theme was Protecting the palnet with standards and a poster contest was launched. 

Participants were asked to think about how international standards help to promote sustainability, for instance by preparing the ground for renewable energy usage and integration into the electricity grid. International standards also pave the way for circular economy processes, including the recycling and reuse of materials, as well as providing benchmarks for energy efficiency in multiple devices and systems.

The winner is Jyoti Bisht from India. “In my poster, I created a wide variety of modern utilities such as electric cars, alternate sources of energy, and many more, all of which leave little to zero footprint on our planet when they are used by us, because they comply with international standards. Thus, I wanted to send out a message that, by using such products which follow international standards, we can protect our planet from irreversible damage provoked by carbon emissions and greenhouse gases,” she explains.