Advisory group formed to drive sustainable standards

A new Net Zero Strategic Advisory Group has been formed by the BSI – the UK’s national standards body – to help ensure that standards support and accelerate industry’s transition to net zero.

The Group intends to drive positive change across the international standards community by overseeing a shift in all standards so that they best reflect net zero requirements and are compliant with net zero policies. Its activity will include articulating industry requirements and policy ambitions and providing guidance to BSI.

The Group is independently chaired by Laura Sandys, who is a non-executive director of SGN and the Energy Systems Catapult and chair of the government’s Energy Digitalisation Taskforce.

Its membership is drawn from government, academia, research bodies and industry. Members represent a broad range of sectors, disciplines and bring an international perspective. The founding members include:

• Chris Stark – chief executive, The Climate Change Committee
• Benet Northcote – senior advisor, Seahorse Environmental and trustee, Green Alliance
• Gillian Cooper – head of energy policy, Citizens Advice
• Sarah Tennison – head of clean growth strategy and impact, Innovate UK – UKRI
• Simon Harrison – group head of strategy, Mott Macdonald
• Gudrun Cartwright – climate action director, Business in the Community

BSI’s associate director of energy and sustainability standards Sebastiaan Van Dort said: “Over the last twelve months the journey to net zero has gathered pace. COP26 served as a major watershed moment for nations, governments and businesses – if we want to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and keep global temperatures from rising above 1.5C, then now is the moment to turn our climate change commitments into climate change actions.

“The international standards community has a critical role to empower standards users to accelerate their transition. The Net Zero Strategic Advisory Group will oversee our delivery of this.”

Laura Sandys added: “Industry standards are often the crucial but forgotten component of change required for reaching net zero. The work that BSI are doing nationally and as importantly internationally will be one of the most important drivers of embedding change across the economy. I am very privileged to be chairing such a group of experts to support BSI deliver on its important role in driving net zero economy wide.”