2007, Piran, Slovenia

Thermal comfort
INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
ERGONOMICS
Ken Parsons
Department of Human Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire
LE11 3TU, United Kingdom
Contact person: k.c.parsons@lboro.ac.uk
This paper provides a review of the current status, structure and strategy for Standards in the
area of ‘Ergonomics of the Physical Environment’. ISO TC159 SC5 has five working groups,
where international experts develop Standards concerned with Environmental Ergonomics.
Working Group One (WG1) is concerned with thermal environments. Standards have been
published in the area of heat stress; cold stress; thermal comfort; clothing’ metabolic rate;
contact with hot, moderate and cold surfaces; terminology; vehicle environments; risk
assessment; physiological measurements; subjective methods; instrumentation and more.
Working Group Two (WG2) is concerned with lighting. It is linked with the work of the CIE
and has Standards in the area of lighting for indoor and outdoor environments. Working
Group Three (WG3) is concerned with signals and communication in noisy environments. It
has published a range of Standards concerned with speech communication, danger signals and
communication with information technology devices.
Working Group 4 (WG4) is concerned with integrated environments. It addresses Standards
for total environments where noise, lighting, thermal environments, vibration and air quality
are considered separately as components in a ‘total’ environment as well as in terms of their
interactions. A Standard currently out for international vote is concerned with physical and
subjective measures used in the Environmental Ergonomics survey. Working Group Five
(WG5) is concerned with environments for people with special requirements. A current work
item is concerned with the application of international Standards for people who would fall
outside of the scope of existing Standards. This includes the effects of age, people with
disabilities, people with impaired thermoregulation, people with visual or auditory
impairments and so on. The Standard is currently out for international vote.
The work of the working groups is determined by the sub-committee (ISO TC159 SC5) which
sets strategy for Standards in Environmental Ergonomics. It is a formal committee of ISO and
receives national delegations.
Future work items include a digital manikin for assessing thermal environments in vehicles;
the assessment of air quality and practical methods for cooling people during heatwaves. All
Standards are produced under the Vienna agreement such that ISO Standards will also be
considered as European (EU) Standards and hence eventually adopted by national bodies of
the European Union. Experts who produce the Standards are representatives of national
bodies and co-opted experts with specific international expertise. To ensure that the best
available technical expertise is represented in the Standards, it is important to attract high
quality Environmental Ergonomists from around the world. There is an open invitation
therefore for experts from the ICEE to contribute to the work. There are a number of
mechanisms for becoming involved one of which is to contact the author of this paper
directly.
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