Welcome to the Climate Change Corner, a new column dedicated to raising awareness, providing education, and inspiring action on one of the most pressing issues of our time: climate change. As the impacts of climate change become increasingly evident, it is crucial for individuals, communities, and businesses in Lesotho to stay informed and engaged. Our goal is to offer you valuable insights, practical advice, and inspiring stories to help you understand and address the challenges posed by climate change.
Why Climate Change Matters Climate change is not just an environmental issue; it is a global challenge that affects every aspect of our lives. From extreme weather events and rising temperatures to shifts in agricultural productivity and biodiversity loss, the consequences of climate change are far-reaching. In Lesotho communities are already facing the impacts, making it essential for us to act now. The Climate Change Corner aims to be your trusted source of information and support, helping you navigate this complex issue. What’s in store for you: Each week, the Climate Change Corner will bring you a diverse range of content designed to inform, educate, and inspire.
This week we discuss: THE EVOLVING CONCEPT OF QUALITY
Very simply put, quality is “the ability to meet needs and expectations”.1 These needs and expectations might be for a product or a service, for a process, a system, a person or an organization, and are typically defined by customers, regulators or other interested parties. In today’s high-tech and increasingly socially and environmentally conscious world, however, the traditional “inherent quality” of products and services alone is no longer enough.
Consumers and society in general are more demanding in terms of the ways in which those products and services are provided, including the processes employed and the effects they can have on sustainability. This means, for example, they have concerns that can include carbon or water footprint, contributions to climate change, use of socially unacceptable practices and overall corporate governance. If any one of these factors is found to be deficient, today’s social media communications can result in almost instantaneous global condemnation of the organization concerned—including potential boycotts by consumers—even though the “inherent quality” of their product or service may be impeccable.
In a similar fashion in the B2B supply chain, many organizations are placing additional requirements on their suppliers that go beyond those for the “inherent quality” of the products or services they provide.
This has caused a shift in recent years by more progressive organizations from a traditional (“narrow”) approach to quality (focused almost exclusively on the quality of the products and services they provide) to a more holistic “broad” quality philosophy that extends along the value chain and addresses the many different dimensions of quality that are important for today’s consumers and society.
This “broad quality” approach includes, for example, the following dimensions:
» Product or service quality
» Organizational efficiency (aiming to reduce waste, including energy, non-renewable resources, etc.)
» Environmental considerations (including energy use, GHG emissions and others)
» Social issues (such as paying a living wage, avoiding child labour or forced labour)
» Governance (fraud, bribery, corruption, etc.)
In the context of climate change as one component of “broad quality”, we then ask the question “WHOSE requirements need to be met?”, and the answer can be found in the so-called “Brundtland Report” of 1987 (Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future 2):
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
In other words, the quality of life for future generations. This is an important concept, and one that we will revisit in Part 4 when we discuss the changes that are being made by ISO to its series of management system standards—including ISO 9001 (quality management), ISO 14001 (environmental management) and ISO 50001 (energy management), among others—as part of the deployment of its “London Declaration on Climate Action”. Future generations are a key “interested party” and need to have their needs and expectations articulated and considered. 1 Derived from the definitions of “quality” and “requirement” provided in ISO 9000:2015 (Quality management systems – Fundamentals and vocabulary)
“Little time is available for corrective action. In some cases, we may already be close to transgressing critical thresholds. While scientists continue to research and debate causes and effects, in many cases we already know enough to warrant action. This is true locally and regionally in the cases of such threats as desertification, deforestation, toxic wastes, and acidification; it is true globally for such threats as climate change, ozone depletion, and species loss. The risks increase faster than do our abilities to manage them.” Brundtland Report (1987).
By looking at the question of climate change from this perspective, it is not surprising that we can therefore expand the traditional “narrow” focus of a quality infrastructure system (QIS), focused initially on trade-related “narrow quality” issues, to include a broader perspective—that can support initiatives aimed at climate adaptation and mitigation—for example, through the lens of “broad quality”.
A system that goes beyond the original intent of providing confidence and trust in the inherent quality of products and services that are traded nationally, regionally and internationally to one that can provide confidence and trust in the measurements, data and reporting that are used to demonstrate the achievement of climate change or net zero related initiatives. Just as a sound QI can help guard against the trade of substandard, noncompliant goods and services, it can also help to prevent so-called “greenwashing”, where ill-founded (and sometimes downright false) environmental declarations are made by organizations, or where a nation’s claims of meeting their climate change targets as part of their sustainable development commitments cannot be substantiated.
In the upcoming issue, we get to know more about: WHAT IS A QUALITY INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEM AND HOW DOES IT SUPPORT CLIMATE ACTION?
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