Ripple Effects:
WCD & ISO

Common Ground for Dams?

Dams are one tool for developing resources. Voluntary compliance standards for certification are a tool for developing dams. Put them both together and you may generate controversy, or a solution.

ISO 14001 is the first in a series of Environmental Management Standards (EMS) developed by the Geneva-based International Organisation for Standardisation. These ISO standards include Life-Cycle Assessments (LCA), which examine total and cumulative impacts of a development option from concept through execution through decommissioning, letting states compare, for example, the costs and benefits of a thermal plant, a windmill farm or a hydrodam.

It may also help establish a standard for compliance. Today there are more than 16 000 certificates issued by independent certification bodies like Lloyds and DNV (Det Norske Veritas). The organisations that have decided to have certified ISO 14001 systems vary from traditional industry to construction companies, energy providers and banks.

The potential stakes are high, but the ISO field is still young and emerging. Does it work? Is it only a baseline? Can it be customised for large dams? What would ISO think of WCD? What happened with forest practice ISO? Are the dam industry, banking, investment, insurance and export credit guarantee communities -- which have been involved in the WCD process -- prepared to fight for ISO?

Axel Wenblad

"An ISO-path is the quickest and most efficient tool to make your coming guidelines operational at least within industry and dam operators," comments Axel Wenblad, Vice President for Environmental Affairs at Skanska, a financial contributor to the WCD and member of the 'industry group' in the WCD process. "The ISO is also prepared to develop guidelines for ISO 14001 for dams provided there is an initiative from at least five countries."

There is an ISO certified Environmental Produce Declaration (EPD) for the hydroelectric dams of the government owned Swedish energy provider, Vattenfall.

Yet few NGOs are as enamoured with ISO. Of those familiar with ISO, some see it as an industry-dominated forum for keeping the status quo, watering down regulations, perhaps even putting an ecological or social-friendly seal of approval on practices that may not deserve it.

But ISO controversies for one resource development does not mean controversy for another. "The process that came up with the ISO Forestry companion to ISO 14001 was nearly as

Tom Rotherham

representative as the WCD process. Considering the difference in the resources expended on the process, this is not surprising", says Tom Rotherham, ISO 14001 Project Manager for the International Institute for Sustainable Development. "The advantage is that nobody can reasonably question the credibility of the WCD work and the guidelines that it has produced, least of all the ISO Central Secretariat.

"However, the danger is that, if civil society actors in the WCD process are not happy with the use of an ISO 14001-framework to implement guidelines that they feel ownership in, then ISO, ISO TC207 and the industry group might find themselves facing unexpected controversy. Looking 5 or 7 years down the road, when an ISO-WCD guidance document would have to be reviewed under the ISO rules, if civil society imagines that the review process is not at least as inclusive as the original WCD process has been, then they may feel, perhaps rightfully, that it will be gradually watered down."