Annual Report 2023

Welcome to CEN and CENELEC Annual Report 2023!

2023 was a pivotal year for European Standardization. Amid significant geopolitical shifts and Europe's ongoing journey toward sustainability and resilience, CEN and CENELEC once again demonstrated our unwavering dedication to our shared European values.

Last year marked the 30th Anniversary of the Single Market, during which the role of standardization was both recognized and reinforced. The implementation of the new European Standardization Strategy and the establishment of the High-Level Forum underscored the strategic importance of standards for Europe's future.

We also reaffirmed our commitment to the twin Green and Digital transitions. In digitalization, we made significant strides in key areas such as AI, cyber resilience, and quantum technologies, fostering an ecosystem of trust and innovation across Europe.

Simultaneously, we advanced numerous standardization activities to support the green transition of European industry. Our work included the development of standards for new clean technologies and sustainable energy sources, such as hydrogen, critical raw materials, carbon capture, and circular economy practices.

Moreover, we made substantial progress in implementing our priority projects under the CEN and CENELEC Strategy 2030. These efforts ensure that our standardization system and services continue to act as catalysts for a sustainable and globally competitive European economy.

This Annual Report highlights these and many other achievements. It pays tribute to the relentless efforts of our members, partners, stakeholders, and collaborators. Their dedication is a testament to the enduring strength of the European Standardization System, which allows CEN and CENELEC, and indeed all of Europe, to look forward to the future with optimism.

We invite you to explore the CEN and CENELEC Annual Report 2023 and celebrate these milestones with us.

Enjoy the reading!

European Standards for the Green Transition...

In 2023, CEN and CENELEC conducted many standardization activities to support the green transition of the European industry and foster the development of new clean technologies and sustainable energy sources.

Some of the highlights include:

Hydrogen

Hydrogen supports the decarbonization of industry, transport, power generation and buildings across Europe, and facilitates the large-scale integration of renewables.

In 2023 CEN and CENELEC’s technical committees continued developing standards enabling the wider deployment of hydrogen technologies.

One highlight of the year was the creation of a CEN and CENELEC Hydrogen Coordination Group to address the implementation of the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance Roadmap on Hydrogen Standardization.

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Ecodesign

In 2023, CLC/TC 59X ‘Performance of household and similar electrical appliances’ published four new standards which set new energy labelling and Ecodesign requirements for household washing machines and washer-dryers, in support of the Ecodesign and Energy labelling Regulations.

Furthermore, CEN-CLC/JTC 10 ‘Material efficiency aspects for products in scope of Ecodesign legislation’ worked on a new standard, prEN 45560 ‘Method to achieve circular designs of products’. This document provides guidance on how to reduce the environmental impact of products, without compromising functions and safety.

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Carbon Capture

In November 2023, the CEN Technical Boards established CEN/TC 474 ‘Carbon dioxide Capture, transportation, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS)’. The committee will focus on the full lifecycle of CCUS projects and include design and construction in their work, together with health, safety, and environmental aspects. Another priority will be the measurement, monitoring, verification and quantification of CO₂ across the CCUS value chain.

Critical raw materials

New CEN/TC 472 ‘Rare Earth Elements’ was set up to address the strategic standardization needs in the field of critical raw materials. Besides mirroring the work of ISO/TC 298 ‘Rare Earth’, the TC’s scope includes standardization on ‘Elements Recycling’ and ‘Sustainability and traceability’, with special attention drawn to the circularity of raw materials.

In June 2023, CEN and CENELEC also published a position paper welcoming the European Commission’s proposal on the Critical Raw Materials Act.

Circular economy

CEN and CENELEC continued to put a big emphasis on the achievement of a Green and Circular Economy. CEN/TC 473 ‘Circular Economy’ was created at the end of 2023 with the task to develop horizontal standards that address European specific prerequisites, legislation, and policy.

Digital Product Passport (DPP)

In September 2023,  CEN and CENELEC established  CEN-CLC/JTC 24 ‘Digital Product Passport – Framework and System’. This new JTC is tasked to develop the new standards requested by the Standardization Request on DPP, on topics including common framework, protocols, and unique identifiers.

EU Policy and Standardization

An important year for the relationship between European standards and European Policy, 2023 began with the inaugural meeting of the High-Level Forum on Standardization on 20 January. The High-Level Forum (HLF) was an action established by the European Standardization Strategy and its launch marked a key milestone in the strategy’s implementation. The meeting, hosted by Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, brought together 50 high-level representatives from industry, policy, civil society, and standardization.

CEN and CENELEC also participated in the second meeting of the HLF, which took place on 30 November 2023. The Forum launched the ‘Education and Skills on Standards’ pledge and discussed the finalization of the Annual Union Work Programme on Standardization 2024.

In 2023, CEN and CENELEC also celebrated 30 years of the Single Market, with a number of actions to highlight the role standards in its implementation and development. On 23 January, Elena Santiago Cid, Director General of CEN and CENELEC, was invited to speak at the European Parliament during the hearing on Standardization in the Single Market held by the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO). This took place in the context of the 30th year anniversary of the EU Single Market, in which standardization has played a key role in ensuring the free movement of goods and services between its members. CEN and CENELEC also launched a multimedia communication campaign.

Furthermore, we contributed to key legislative proposals relevant for CEN and CENELEC, such as the Net-Zero Industry Act, Critical Raw Materials Act, the revision of the Construction Products Regulation, and the Artificial Intelligence Act. The Evaluation of Regulation 1025/2012 began in September 2023, with a public call for evidence from the European Commission. CEN and CENELEC published a position paper in response and will continue to contribute to the next steps of the evaluation, that is continuing into 2024.

Building an Open, Inclusive System

Ensuring the widest participation of stakeholders in standardization is key to the high quality of our standards and the legitimization of our system.

For this reason, over the years we have established a series of cooperation formats with a variety of partners from the industry and civil society.

Societal Stakeholders

In 2023 CEN, CENELEC, and the Annex III organizations agreed to develop a join Action Plan to address the European Standardization Strategy recommendations on strengthening inclusiveness and effective participation of SMEs and Societal stakeholders representing consumers, workers and environmental interests in the European Standardization System.

These efforts are run in parallel with the collaboration with CEN and CENELEC Partners and other stakeholders in the framework of the High-Level Forum.

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Industry Advisory Forum

The purpose of the Industry Advisory Forum (IAF) is to provide a platform for high-level dialogue with industry to ensure standards adequately respond to market needs.

In 2023, the IAF focused on developing recommendations to the CEN and CENELEC boards on the European Standardization Strategy, and on strategic standardization topics such as Next Generation of standard-makers, Services and energy transition, or Sustainability reporting.

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Stakeholders’ Engagement Workshops

CEN and CENELEC organise a series of Stakeholders’ Engagement Workshops to connect with all relevant parties on emerging strategic issues and identify suitable standardization solutions.

In 2023, we organized two of these workshops:

• Standards: Driving the future of CleanTech in Europe
• Road to Net Zero: Standards for the All-Electric Society

Other events and trainings

In 2023, we organised a series of other events on relevant standardization issues, which attracted a big number of participants. Among them:

• Cybersecurity Standardization Conference 2023with over 1.600 attendees from the EU and from around the world
• Putting Science Into Standards workshop on Circular Technologies for construction industry with over 200 online attendees
• Standards + Innovation Awards 2023 as part of DG RTD’s event on Making research results work for society and gathered close to 700 participants in person and online

The full list of events and trainings can be found here.

Engaging with like-minded International Partners

CEN and CENELEC’s international activities are centred on two key principles: enhancing the role of standards to boost the competitiveness of European businesses on the global stage; and collaborating with like-minded international partners to provide common solutions to global challenges.

Our activities in 2023 were targeted at different group of international partners:

Affiliates are National Standardization Bodies (NSBs) or National Committees (NCs) from countries formally recognized as candidate or potential candidate for EU accession.

To date, the 6 Affiliates of CEN and CENELEC are DPS (Albania), ISBIH (Bosnia and Herzegovina), GeoSTM (Georgia), ISM (Moldova), ISME (Montenegro) and SE UkrNDNC/DSTU (Ukraine). They have adopted a total of 131.838 CEN and CENELEC standards.

The six CEN and CENELEC Affiliates adopted many ENs because one of the requirements of the ‘Acquis Communautaire’ is that their national standardization bodies become Members of CEN and CENELEC. One of the criteria for a NSB/NC to become a CEN and CENELEC Member is that the NSB/NC has to adopt at least 80% of CEN and CENELEC active standards.

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The Companion Standardization Body (CSB) status is available to NSBs/NCs that do not qualify to become Members or Affiliates, and which seek a privileged relationship with CEN and/or CENELEC. Amongst the services offered, CSBs have full and direct access to European standards and can participate as observers in the work of CEN and CENELEC technical bodies.

To date, CEN has 16 CSBs and CENELEC has 8 CSBs, mostly including countries from the EU Neighbourhood Policy, but also standards bodies from Australia, Cameroon, Canada, Kazakhstan, Ivory Coast, Mongolia, and Nigeria. At the end of 2023, CEN and CENELEC CSBs had adopted a total of 8.415 CEN and CENELEC standards.

In March 2023, the CEN General Assembly approved the application of SON (Standardization Organization of Nigeria) for CSB status in CEN, applicable as of April 2023. Subsequently, in July 2023, the CEN General Assembly also approved SCC (Standards Council of Canada) as a new CEN CSB, applicable as of September 2023. 

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Other NSBs/NCs with which CEN and CENELEC do not have a cooperation framework still have the opportunity to adopt European standards (identically) through specific contractual arrangements with CEN or CENELEC.

CEN and CENELEC also offer these NSBs/NCs the possibility to receive standards for review by their technical committees before a decision is taken to adopt them (or not).

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Standardization Activities

In 2023, CEN and CENELEC developed a total of 1457 new standardization deliverables, across 22 business sectors. The slideshow on the right gives a graphic overview of the variety of this standardization activity.

Every box represents one business sector, the numbers indicate the amount of new standards developed in 2023 in each one of them, and additional information on is available by clicking on the hyperlinks.  

Standardization Activities in 2023