Winterthur/St Gallen, 13 July The World Resources Forum and the Swiss Association for Standardisation (SNV) hold an ISO workshop on sustainability criteria in secondary resources management. Whilst international efforts on standards and trace-ability mechanisms to ensure sustainable mining of raw materials exist, similar tools for secondary resources are still missing.

The Sustainable Recycling Industries (SRI) Roundtable, a flagship project of WRF in partnership with the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology (EMPA), put forward a proposal to bring together various stakeholders, including experts, organisations and policymakers in the field of sustainable management of secondary resources to develop “Guidance Principles for Addressing Sustainability Criteria in Secondary Resources Management”. The International Workshop Agreement (IWA) was identified as the most suitable mechanism for building an international multi-stakeholder consensus. Guidance Principles resulting from an IWA can be further developed into a full ISO standard, according to ISO procedures. The Swiss Association for Standardisation (SNV) has also pledged its support to the initiative and shall provide the secretariat for this Meeting.

The ISO IWA Kick-Off Meeting and First IWA Workshop Session have now been confirmed to take place on 14-16 October 2015 in Davos, Switzerland back to back with the World Resources Forum 2015, which takes place October 11-14, 2015. The kick-off meeting will start after the closure of the plenary WRF sessions. The meetings will consist of two sections: “Sustainability Criteria” and “Governance”. ISO members and other stakeholders from more than 16 countries as well as regional and global organisations are expected to participate in drafting the Guidance Principles. Participation in this IWA is open to any interested organization or company, both profit and non-profit.

For any further information or to register for participation, please contact SRI program manager Mrs Sonia Valdivia at sonia.valdivia@wrforum.org .