First International Standard Published for Cookstove Lab Testing
"Standards play a critical role in virtually every industry, delivering transformative impact on safety and performance," said Sally Seitz, co-secretariat of ISO TC 285 and senior program manager at ANSI. "With the publication of this standard, the clean cooking sector is poised to make significant strides toward better products and, ultimately, toward improved outcomes for consumers who use them."
The first international standard for laboratory testing of cookstoves has been released, and ANSI predicts it will have a significant impact on manufacturer guidelines to support the improvement of cookstove quality and performance for millions of people. The American National Standards Institute is the co-secretariat of the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee 285 on Clean Cookstoves and Cooking Solutions, which helped support the development of the standard. The Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) is the twinned co-secretariat.
The standard is ISO/TR 21276:2018. It includes protocols to test and report the emissions, efficiency, safety, and durability of cookstoves in a lab setting. The standard is expected to replace an ISO International Workshop Agreement from 2012 and to serve as the basis for national policies and programs on cookstoves, while also incentivizing manufacturers and developers to improve stoves' quality and performance.
"Standards play a critical role in virtually every industry, delivering transformative impact on safety and performance," said Sally Seitz, co-secretariat of ISO TC 285 and senior program manager at ANSI. "With the publication of this standard, the clean cooking sector is poised to make significant strides toward better products and, ultimately, toward improved outcomes for consumers who use them."
TC 285 recently published a technical report to provide harmonized definitions of key terms and concepts used within the sector related to clean cookstoves and clean cooking solutions, and it also has been developing guidance on field testing, which is currently open for ballot at the draft international standard phase. If approved, it is expected to reach the final phase of development in late 2018 or early 2019.