What difference can you make?

The importance of the "user" perspective in the production of market-driven standards is now recognized regardless of a country's level of development.

Consumers can contribute in many ways, for example:

• by providing data on safety aspects and ensuring that safety is properly addressed;
• by giving examples of how products and services are actually used (or misused) in practice;
• by checking that the performance requirements and test methods reflect the way products and services are actually used.

Consumers lend their unique perspective to the creation of the voluntary standards that define products and services used in everyday life.

As a consumer representative you can participate in meetings of national or international technical committees where standards are developed.

The consumer representative’s role is to ensure that the standards being developed address issues of concern to consumers. These may include some of the following: health, safety, performance, ergonomics, quality, reliability, comfort, environmental protection, ease-of-use, compatibility and interoperability.

No particular background is required - though an interest in, and some knowledge of, the subject area is helpful - just a willingness to read and understand the issues, and get your voice heard by participating.

You can begin by:

• Contacting your national consumers’ association. Consumer associations often cooperate with national standards bodies, or with larger consumer groups, or both. If not, encourage your consumer association to do so!
• Contacting the ISO member body in your country. This body is the representative national standards body of your country. Contact details are given in the list of ISO members.
• Contacting international and regional consumer associations. Consumers International is the worldwide organization for consumer groups. In Europe, the European Association for the Coordination of Consumer Representation in Standardization (ANEC) is a regional association representing consumers in standardization.
• Contacting the ISO Committee on Consumer policy (COPOLCO). This committee's activity is described in the next section. Other useful publications and references can be found at Publications and resources.