Environmental labelling and the life cycle assessment (LCA) at the ISO/TC 207 meeting
Delegates from the subcommittees 3 and 5 met in Kuala Lumpur at the beginning of July. On the agenda of SC 3 subcommittee and during other events within the ISO/TC 207 session regarding environmental labelling, seminar and discussion activities prevailed. In spite of the efforts of experts from several EU countries no success has been achieved in the adoption of the decision on future destiny of the technical report for the type III of environmental labelling. The decision was postponed to the next year?s meeting. Delegates of the subcommittee 5 have discussed comments concerning the draft documents ISO/DTR 14047 (Examples of application of ISO 14042) and ISO/CD2 14048 (Life Cycle Assessment – LCA data documentation format), which were submitted by ISO members. Plenary session of SC 5 focused on possibilities of improving the quality and applicability of existing documents published within ISO 14040. SC 5 meeting in Kuala Lumpur confirmed the interest of ISO members in the international standards ISO 14040 – LCA and continuously increasing credit of this group of standards.
Environmental management in the Slovak Environmental Agency (SEA)
Alongside other activities, the Slovak Environmental Agency is in charge of environmental management. Tasks of environmental management are performed by the Environmental Management Department, which is an organisational unit of the SEA?s Waste Management and Environmental Management Centre. Activities of the said Department include: performance of technical-organisational and administrative works connected with the implementation of the National Programme of Environmental Assessment and Eco-labelling of Products; implementation of ISO 14000 standards; technical assistance to MoE SR in the Council Regulations No. 1980/2000/EC and 761/2001/EC transposition and implementation; monitoring of EMS certification and EMAS registration; promotion, information and education activities in the relevant sphere.
Eco-design managing – an increasing requirement in the product designing
The article summarises present
views on eco-design and analyses attitudes of main stakeholders. Based
on the analyses of major weaknesses and obstacles of eco-design development,
proposals for the eco-design organisational integration have been worked
out in the form of a seven-stage model. The role of eco-design managers
and eco-designers is also a subject of discussion.
