Over the years, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has established documents which have been used in many sustainability standardization initiatives. In particular, standards like ISO 14001 (environmental management) and ISO 50001 (energy management) have been commonly referenced by manufacturers, certifiers, and standards developers in the development of sustainable operations criteria. These standards, when used in conjunction with other ISO standards such as the ISO 14020 series (environmental labels and declarations) and the ISO 14040 series (lifecycle assessment), have provided a valuable framework by which many all-encompassing sustainable product standards have been developed.

To date, most sustainable product standards have been developed by national standards development bodies based on the demands of their respective marketplaces. For example, our domestic tile industry sustainability standard, Green Squared®, though applicable to products no matter where in the world they are produced, is a North American standard developed to meet the sustainability needs of the North American marketplace. In Europe, the EU Ecolabel standard was developed by the European Commision to service the needs, many of which are regulatory, of EU Procurement directives.

With several tile industry sustainability standards already developed by national bodies worldwide, and given the existence of several international reference documents already used in the evaluation of general product sustainability, the tile industry’s ISO Technical Committee, ISO/TC 189 is looking into the development of an international specification for product sustainability.

It is virtually impossible to combine the various social and environmental regulations from one country to another into one harmonious international document. But such an effort could at least help us discover some areas where there is worldwide consistency in sustainability expectations. This could be especially helpful for countries which currently do not have national sustainability standards for tile. Additionally, the development of an international document could be helpful in unifying the global industry and facilitating international trade. In other words, it might help our industry speak a common language worldwide regarding product sustainability.

As this effort continues to evolve, the U.S. Delegation will continue to participate on behalf of the product sustainability criteria already developed domestically. In fact, many of the elements of Green Squared® are already being considered. This effort is still in its infancy, but stay tuned for more updates.