Environmental standards are administrative regulations, practices, or legal rules[1] implemented for the treatment and maintenance of the environment.
Environmental standards are typically set by government and can include prohibition of specific activities, mandating the frequency and methods of monitoring, and requiring permits for the use of land or water.
The basis for the standards is determined by scientific opinions from varying disciplines, the views of the general population, and social context.
As a result, the process of determining and implementing the standards is complex and is usually set within legal, administrative or private contexts.
[4] In recent decades, the popularity and awareness of environmentalism has increased with the threat of global warming becoming more alarming than ever since the IPCC released their report in 2018.
Improved measurements and techniques have allowed scientists to better understand the impact of human-caused environmental damage on human health and the biodiversity which composes the natural environment.
[8] This is evident as environmental standards often characterize the desired state (e.g. the pH of a lake should be between 6.5 and 7.5) or limit alterations (e.g., no more than 50% of the natural forest may be damaged).
At the Earth summit in 1992, held in Rio, the member states acknowledged their negative impact on the environment for the first time.
Since then, the risk of the catastrophe caused by extreme weather has been enhanced by the overuse of natural resources and global warming.
The environmental areas of water, energy, oceans, ecosystems, sustainable production, consumer behavior and climate protection were covered by the goals.
In Title XX, Article 191.1, it is settled: "Union policy on the environment shall contribute to the pursuit of the following objectives: — preserving, protecting and improving the quality of the environment, — protecting human health, — prudent and rational utilization of natural resources, — promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental; problems, and in particular combating climate change."
European environmental regulation covers air, biotechnological, chemical, climate change, environmental economics, health, industry and technology, land use, nature and biodiversity, noise, protection of the ozone layer, soil, sustainable development, waste, and water.
The European Environment Agency (EEA) consults the member states about environmental issues, including standards.
The method of handling environmental standards is a partly fragmented plural system, which is mainly affected by the market.
Under the first Trump administration, climate standards increasingly became a site of conflict in the politics of global warming.
[23] Emission standards are national regulations managed by the EPA [24] that control the amount and concentration of pollutants that can be released into the atmosphere to maintain air quality, human health, and regulate the release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), oxides of nitrogen and oxides of sulfur.
[25] The standards are established in two phases to stay up-to-date, with final projections aiming to collectively save Americans $1.7 trillion in fuel costs and reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 6 billion metric tons.
[9][29][30] In light of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, ISO has identified several families of standards which help meet SDG 13 which is focused on Climate Action for global warming.
[32][33] The World Wide Fund is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment.
To satisfy the stakeholders' requirement, companies were focused on the public impression of their environmental self-commitment standards.