The changes include a new Segment 57000000 -Humanitarian Relief Items, Kits, or Accessories, requested by United Nation Global Marketplace (UNGM); additional codes were added to support the United States Department of Agriculture's Specialty Crops Inspection at the U.S. border.
[2] The UNSPSC was organized upon the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding signed on September 29, 1998, by John S. Svendsen, the director of the Inter-agency Procurement Services Office (IAPSO) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and on November 1, 1998, by Lawrence M. Barth, a Vice President of the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation.
The ECCMA, a non-profit membership association, was formed in 1999 to manage and promote the UNSPSC until March 2003, with the release of version 6.0315.
[6] The codeset is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Hungarian.
A version in Microsoft Excel format is available to members, who can also request changes and suggest additions to the code.