5.4.2. Committee Duties

The work of the standardization committee is to agree on a single or preferred term to designate each key concept in a particular standard or family of standards and specify the features that characterize the concept, usually by the means of a definition. Since the terms included in the final product are selected based on their occurrence in a given standard(s) or documents, rather than on the subject field, concepts may cross a number of subject areas and may involve both highly technical and general terms.

In order to avoid duplication of effort and to promote terminological consistency across technical committees and subcommittees, existing and applicable terminological standards, either completed or in progress, should be collected and considered. Appropriate internal and external liaisons should be established.

It is important that the committee document all pertinent research findings and terminology sources as well as the deliberations of the committee. All relevant documents must be numbered according to directives.

Exercise

Read the following text, then proceed to identify those terms selected by the standardization committee for its environmental management vocabulary.

"The overall goal of environmental labels and declarations is, through communication of verifiable and accurate information that is not misleading on environmental aspects of products and services, to encourage the demand for and supply of those products and services that cause less stress on the environment, thereby stimulating the potential for market-driven continuous environmental improvement."
(taken from ISO/TC207/SC3/WG1 N59 Working draft TR14025: Environmental Labels and Declarations -Type III Environmental Declarations - Guiding Principles and Procedures)