How the London Declaration embedded climate action in standards development

Five years ago, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) members made a simple, yet significant, collective decision.

Climate change could no longer be treated as a specialist consideration, relevant only to environmental standards or to a limited number of technical communities. It needed to become part of the way we think about standards across the entire international system.

That decision became the London Declaration: ISO’s commitment to embed climate considerations into the development of new and revised international standards, to strengthen the role of climate science in that process, and to broaden participation to include civil society and those most vulnerable to climate change.

At the time, it was an important statement of intent.

Five years later, its real significance can be seen in something less visible but arguably more powerful: a change in the foundations of how standards are developed.

When people think about climate standards, they may first think of greenhouse gas accounting, environmental management or renewable energy. These are essential areas of work, but climate change reaches much further.

It affects how infrastructure is designed, how supply chains are managed, how food is produced, how financial risks are assessed and how communities prepare for changing environmental conditions. It has implications for transport, construction, technology, water, health, manufacturing and almost every other part of the economy.

A standard developed in any one of these areas may shape decisions for years or even decades. It can influence which materials are used, what risks organizations plan for, how performance is measured and what good practice looks like across a global market.

The question facing the standards community in 2021 was therefore larger than whether ISO should develop more climate-related standards. It was how climate science and the realities of the transition should inform standards wherever they are relevant.

This is the deeper transformation behind the London Declaration.

Rather than positioning climate action as a separate stream of work, it committed the ISO community to consider how climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience should become part of the standards development process itself.

Fast forward to today, and climate considerations are increasingly becoming part of how committees plan and assess their work. A 2025 survey found the majority of ISO technical committees were already integrating, or planning to integrate, climate considerations into their standards development activities.

This represents meaningful progress. It shows that climate is increasingly being treated as a consistent and expected component of standards development, rather than an additional consideration applied only after the central technical work has taken place. It also reflects the scale of the task.

ISO develops standards across an extraordinarily broad range of sectors and technologies. Climate relevance will look different in each context. The considerations involved in revising a standard for resilient infrastructure will differ from those involved in standards for digital technologies, agriculture or industrial processes.

There can be no single technical answer applied everywhere. What can be consistent is the expectation that climate science is actively considered, that relevant risks and opportunities are understood, and that standards are designed for the environmental conditions in which they will need to function.

International standards are used every day by governments, companies, public institutions and organizations of every size. They help translate broad goals into practical systems, processes and measurements. Global climate goals depend on decisions made throughout the economy. Those decisions need tools that people can apply across organizations, sectors, value chains and jurisdictions.

Standards help create the shared language and infrastructure that make coordinated action possible. They support alignment between ambition and implementation, between national priorities and international markets, and between regulation and the operational realities faced by organizations.

Partnerships have also played an important role in advancing this work. By collaborating with international organizations, governments, industry, academia and civil society, ISO has strengthened the expertise, reach and collective action needed to embed climate considerations more effectively across the international standards system.

This connective role is essential. ISO members, the national standards bodies that make up our organization, have a central role in this process. They connect the international standards system with the priorities, policies and stakeholders of their countries. They bring local expertise into global standards development and help ensure that internationally agreed solutions can be understood, adopted and applied in national contexts.

This is also why participation matters. Effective standards draw on a broad range of knowledge and experience. Civil society, researchers and communities most exposed to climate impacts bring perspectives that may otherwise be missing from technical discussions.

The London Declaration recognized that climate-responsive standards need both strong science and inclusive participation. Continuing to widen that participation will remain essential as the work develops.

Five years is an important moment to reflect on progress. Climate considerations are increasingly embedded across ISO’s standards development system. The technical community has helped turn a collective pledge into practical change. Members are connecting this work to national priorities, and evidence continues to emerge of how standards can contribute to emissions reductions, resilience and wider sustainability outcomes.

But this milestone is also a chance to reflect on the work that remains.

Progress is still uneven. Climate considerations need to become consistent practice across the entire system, supported by the right expertise and applied wherever they are relevant.

The next phase is therefore about depth, consistency and scale. It means continuing to support technical committees as they consider changing climate conditions and transition pathways within their work, and ensuring that ISO members have the tools and partnerships required to connect standards with national climate policies.

It also means strengthening participation so that those most affected by climate change can contribute to the solutions intended to support them. And it means increasing the use of International Standards by organizations, governments and industries seeking credible and practical pathways to climate action.

One of the most important lessons of the past five years is that climate action cannot sit at the edges of existing systems - it must become part of how those systems function.

That is the lasting impact of the London Declaration, which began with a pledge. The next chapter of ISO’s Climate Commitment will be written through action.