Human-Centered Transition Pathways: ANSI Seeks Comments on Proposal for New ISO Technical Committee

Submit Comments by November 17

As the U.S. member body to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) seeks comments on a proposal for a new ISO Technical Committee (TC) focused on human-centered transition pathways.

JISC, the ISO member for Japan, submitted to ISO a proposal for a new ISO TC on Human-centered transition pathways, with the following scope statement:

“Standardization in the field of tools to develop human-centered transition pathways for resolving societal issues, including terminologies, principles, general requirements and guidance, framework, metrics and indicators, requirements for organizations, societal systems, and products that support implementation, use of technical enablers and application to specific sectors.”

Various societal issues including aging, pollution, poverty, climate change, and biodiversity loss have a major impact on humanity. Since such societal issues are significant and typically involve diverse stakeholders, designing “transition pathways” that support necessary changes to resolve societal issues is essential, the proposal asserts. According to the proposal, a “human-centered transition” is a concept featuring core elements that: 

• Mitigate the short-term adverse impacts on the well-being of current human society (human-centered, inclusive, etc.)
• Contribute better and in less harmful ways to the achievement of addressed societal issues compared to current societal and technical systems (harm reduction, etc.)
• Account for not just delaying or escaping from necessary changes (alignment to the final goal, governance, policy, strategy, anti-wash, evidence-based, traceability, verification, incremental improvement, etc.)

The proposal also asserts that human-centered transition is “one of the practical pathways of societal and industrial changes that lead to the ideal status where the addressed societal issues are resolved without sacrificing the human well-being of today. Such transition is often achieved with advanced technologies, including the ones for digital transformation.”

The proposed TC will work in cooperation with existing committees on subjects that may support the human-centered transition.

Read the proposal and submit comments to Steven Cornish, ANSI senior director of international policy and strategy, [email protected], by close of business on Friday, November 17. Based on input received from U.S. stakeholders, ANSI will develop a recommended ANSI position and any comments for approval by the ANSI ISO Council before ISO’s voting deadline of December 26, 2023.