The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) encourages relevant stakeholders to attend a workshop on February 15-26, 2024, to develop an International Workshop Agreement (IWA 45) on Sustainable critical mineral supply chains. Register by January 14.
Standards Australia will host the workshop, to be held at Tokyo University, Japan, in an effort to launch the development of IWA. The IWA will serve to support the understanding of the range of sustainability tools available, which in turn assists in improving an organization’s sustainability.
As the IWA document asserts, while critical minerals are essential to renewable energy technologies required for carbon emissions to reach net zero, there is a need for significant global collaboration to create an environment that supports effective and efficient industry activities to meet increasing international requirements/demand, while upholding sustainability principles.
To provide more insight into the IWA process and scope of work, Standards Australia will host briefings in December 2023, with the following schedule:
Furthermore, Standards Australia has released a survey to gather views from a range of stakeholders across geographic regions as to the use of standards, guides, and frameworks that organizations use to assess and support their progress related to sustainable supply chain for critical minerals. Relevant stakeholders can complete the survey by Monday, January 15, 2024.
Access more information in the invitation to the virtual workshop.
What is an IWA?
An IWA is a type of document that is developed with direct participation of stakeholders outside of the traditional ISO country representation to enable players to negotiate an open workshop environment. After the IWA workshop, text will be edited and published. A proposal to hold an ISO workshop for the purpose of developing one or more IWA on a particular subject may come from any source, including ISO member bodies, liaison organizations, corporate bodies, etc.