ANSI Student Paper Winner Cites Reman Standard Support for Circular Economy and SDG 12
Each year the American National Standards Institute holds a student paper contest asking students to describe how standards play an important role in society. This year’s challenge was to show how standards support the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
RIC Encourages Student Paper Submissions
The Remanufacturing Industries Council had already recognized that ANSI/RIC001.1-2016: Specifications for the Process of Remanufacturing supports SDG 12: Sustainable consumption and production. RIC then sent a notice out to all of our academic partners encouraging them to invite their students to participate in the student paper contest.
Our academic partners answered the challenge and one of the submissions won first place! Praneetha Pratapa from the University of Texas, Dallas wrote “Role of Standards in Designing Circular Economy and their Effect on United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.”
Reman Standard Important to Circular Economy Model
In this paper Pratapa describes the importance of remanufacturing to a Circular Economy model. She highlights the importance of RIC001.1-2016 for standardizing definitions related to remanufacturing and for reducing confusion between remanufacturing and other re-processes such as refurbishment and reprocessing.
Reman Standard Pairs Well With Other Standards
The paper also sites how additional standards can be paired with RIC001.1 to support SDG 12. ISO/TC 323 Circular economy is cited for its metrics for identifying progress toward a circular economy. ISO 14020 Environmental Labels and Declarations – General Principals supports the labeling section of RIC001.1 and adds credibility for product quality. Finally, ISO 9001 is cited for its ability to instill product quality confidence in consumers.
We were thrilled to hear about the winning paper in the ANSI Student Paper Competition. We knew that our standard played an important role in meeting SDG 12 and it is validating to see it detailed so well in this winning paper. We congratulate Praneetha on a well-researched and well-written paper. We thank her advisor, Ramesh Subramoniam, a long-time supporter of RIC, for his role in this effort.
Vaughn Henson
Chair, RIC