IIW History 1990-2015

Working Units to define, quantify and communicate the environmental impacts of welding and related processes for the benefit of the welding industry – the reason for this being the increasing interest in developing countries on the concept of a ‘sustainable environment’. 35 Discussions on a merger between C-VIII and SC-ENV, mentioned previously, then took place and a resolution was passed at a joint meeting of the two committees during the Annual Assembly in Dubrovnik, 2-4 July 2007, to combine them and change the name of Commission VIII to Health, Safety and Environment . 36 There was a certain degree of reciprocity between SC-ENV and C-VIII since earlier monitoring of Commission activities on the environment by the SC-ENV Secretariat, over a period of three years, showed that only C-VIII had any significant links regarding the environment. This was true in other areas of activity where the two committees had similar interests and had both participated in the activities of CEN/TC 121/WG17 Environmental Impacts of Welding that dealt with the production of ISO standards on environment issues. SC-ENV, prior to the amalgamation, was also producing best practice documents such as Environmental Management in Welding Fabrication , which was not too dissimilar to Costa’s work on health and safety management in welded fabrications mentioned before. This collaboration was to become even more significant through a joint exercise involving Scasso, then Chair of SC-ENV, and Costa and C-VIII in producing the final ISO Draft Technical Report on Welding and allied processes – Environmental management of welding fabrication in 2007. 37 The merging of both groups was as inevitable as it was successful. The activities of C-VIII also involved a joint meeting with Commission XII Arc Welding Processes and Production Systems (C-XII), particularly in relation to their interests in welder safety caused by the effects of electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure in arc welding and resistance welding. One matter concerning EMF’s status as an important health issue became apparent a short time later when the European Directive on EMF postponed

the deadline for the introduction of legislation covering workers’ exposure to electromagnetic fields by four years until 2012, therefore dampening expectations that more immediate action would be taken on a developing health issue for both health workers and welders. Costa also initiated meetings with the Chair of C- II, Mr Vincent van der Mee (Netherlands) who also was a long-time member of C-VIII, thus ensuring a high degree of cooperation between the two commissions. The intermediate meeting of C-VIII held in Gliwice,

LINKING PEOPLE, JOINING NATIONS Poland in 2008 presented some interesting statistics. Firstly, Poland, the host country, in its national report by Mr Jan

Vincent van der Mee