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