A draft standard to define carbon neutrality

If the expression "to name things badly is to bring misfortune to the world" were to find a new illustration, it is on the question of carbon neutrality. The climate emergency now makes it necessary to share the same language for this type of environmental declaration and this is the whole issue of a draft standard underway at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), at the initiative of from the United Kingdom. The future voluntary ISO 14068 standard has one ambition: to promote a common understanding of carbon neutrality and the methods to contribute to it, at the level of public and private organizations.

Participate in French influence

AFNOR already hosts a group of experts on "climate change mitigation and adaptation" led by ADEME. Any expert on the issue is called upon to join this group, including environmental NGOs, which are currently absent in France. “The more our proposals will be substantiated and supported during plenary sessions, the more likely the French vision of the issue will gain the support of other countries”, summarizes Xuan-Hoa Nguyen, project manager in standardization.

Can an organization be carbon neutral? Under what conditions can it indicate it? Should we speak of net, avoided or compensated emissions? So many examples of questions on the table today and on which a consensus must be found. The AFNOR commission is currently in the process of discovering the positions of each of the 60 countries involved, in order to identify possible allies. ISO 14068 will be published in 2023.

On January 26, AFNOR will present the project at an online conference (registrations open). Three experts will intervene:

• Fanny Fleuriot, carbon accounting coordinator - Low Carbon Trajectories Department, ADEME
• Catherine Chevauché, climate and circular economy manager, Suez
• César Dugast, senior consultant, Carbone 4

Reminder of the regulatory context

Climate emergency, low-carbon strategy, carbon neutrality… These three concepts appear more and more in the body of French and European laws and regulations. The National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC) is France's roadmap to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus fight against climate change. This involves implementing the transition to a low-carbon, circular and sustainable economy by 2050. It takes over from Factor 4, a strategy that has long irrigated public policies with the ambition of dividing carbon emissions. national greenhouse gas emissions by 4 in 2050 compared to 1990. The Paris Agreement on the climate, at the end of 2015, calls for a higher gear.

Normalize: an action of influence

AFNOR supports the strategies of French organizations at international level by helping them to combine innovation and standardization. This was the case, for example, in 2019 on the issue of the circular economy and in 2020 on the preservation of biodiversity.

The 2020 edition of the international standardization barometer shows France in 2nd place on the European scene (CEN-CENELEC) and in 3rd place on the international scene (ISO-IEC). At ISO, France took 5th place in the ranking, tied with Japan, with 76 secretariats, a figure it had not reached since 2008.