ISO FORM 1
ISO TS/P 317
PROPOSAL FOR A NEW FIELD OF TECHNICAL ACTIVITYPROPOSER:DATE OF CIRCULATION:

JISC

2023-10-03
CLOSING DATE FOR VOTING:
2023-12-26

A proposal for a new field of technical activity shall be submitted to the Office of the CEO, which will process
the proposal in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Clause 1.5.
Furthermore, a proposal will be considered as complete if every information field is complete and follows theguidelines for proposing and justifying a new field of activity given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Annex C.
TITLE(Please see the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Annex C, Clause C.4.2)
Human-centered transition pathways
SCOPE(Please see the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Annex C, Clause C.4.3)
Standardization in the field of tools to develop human-centered transition pathways for resolving societal issues,
including terminologies, principles general requirements and guidance, framework, metrics and indicators,requirements for organizations, societal systems, and products that support implementation, use of technicalenablers and application to specific sectors.
The proposed TC will work in cooperation with existing committees on subjects that may support the humancentered transition.
Note: Human-centered transition is one of the practical pathways of societal and industrial changes that leadto the ideal status where the addressed societal issues are resolved without sacrificing the human well-beingof today. Such transition is often achieved with advanced technologies, including the ones for digitaltransformation.
Excluded:
Aspects of human-centered transition pathways already covered by existing committees.
PURPOSE AND JUSTIFICATION (Please use the field immediately below or attach an annex.)(Please see the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Annex C, Clause C.4.13)
1. General
Our human society is always facing various societal issues such as ageing, pollution, poverty, climate change,and biodiversity loss which needs dedicated efforts to implement necessary changes to resolve those societal

issues. Since those societal issues are significant and involve diverse stakeholders, designing transition
pathways acceptable to most stakeholders is essential to make the intended transition happen. In many cases,
societal issues emerge from the systemic failure of current societal systems that support the life and well-beingof human society today. Therefore, drastic and brute-force transitions to an ideal situation tend to cause
unbearable pain in our current lives. For example, the mobility sector has been blamed for its carbon emission
from the use of fossil fuels, but immediately and completely quitting the use of fossil fuels would be unrealisticand unacceptable for most of the relevant stakeholders because it will deteriorate their quality of life that is
supported with the mobility services of today. To this end, the practically feasible transition pathways are limited
to human-centered ones without causing unbearable pain to the stakeholders.
At the same time, human-centered transition should not be used as a get-out-of-jail-free card to not align with
the necessary course of changes to resolve the addressed societal issues. A transition pathway must be acontinuation of gradual and actual changes to the ideal situation, and the stakeholders should be accountablefor it.
In summary of the above, human-centered transition is a concept featuring core elements as follows (thestringent definition will be developed by a global consensus).
✓✓✓

Mitigate the short-term adverse impacts on the well-being of current human society (Human-centered,inclusive, etc.)
Contribute better and less harmful to the achievement of addressed societal issues compared to current
societal and technical systems (Harm reduction, etc.)
Accountable for not just delaying or escaping from the necessary changes (alignment to the final goal,
governance, policy, strategy, anti-wash, evidence-based, traceability, verification, incremental
improvement, etc.)

There are various concepts and frameworks are proposed, especially in the field of transition finance. However,these frameworks are not standardized and different from each other. Also, these frameworks do not focus on
the human-centered aspects of transition. It is essential to develop a series of standards in this area toaccelerate the transition whereby providing a consistent framework for implementation, measurement,reporting and verification.
The proposer recognizes the necessity of the endeavour and behavioural changes of current generation for
resolving societal issues and never insist that no effort is required to the current generation. However, it is as
tricky as almost impossible for the large part of ordinary people to reach the targeted summit only with showing
the summit alone. The proposer believes that it is essential to identify common criteria of safe and reliable trailswith which ordinary people can climb up to the summit to accelerate the societal changes for solving societal
issues. This is especially essential in developing countries where their population is still growing.

The definition of "Human-centered" needs to be further discussed, however the intended meaning of "Humancentered" in this proposal is not "human-selfishness" but "feasible" or "go along with economic sustainability".
2. Learning from preceding discussion in ISO
Prior to this proposal, IWA 39 “Gap analysis for standardization on sustainable and human-centred societies
enabled with cyber physical systems” (https://www.iso.org/standard/81618.html) was conducted. This IWA 39
was launched by raising the issue of slow and limited progress of behavioral changes of stakeholders eventhough many standards have already been established to define the ideal goals to solve societal issues. In thediscussion of IWA 39, it was widely accepted that the transition pathways that are too painful to current lives
will not be accepted and less painful ways need to be provided with the utilization of advanced technologies.
IWA 39 achieved the participation of more than 100 experts from multiple TCs and its final report has been
published under a certain level of consensus among them. Thus, it would be reasonable to assume a goodparticipation from relevant TCs as liaisons once the proposed TC is approved and established. It was observedthat most of the representatives from multiple TCs and SDOs as well as the experts from relevant professions
agreed on the the necessity of discussing harmonized principles
In IWA 39:2022, it was recognized that a generic standardization activity addressing human-centered transition
for sustainability through the use of advanced technologies is necessary, which also contributes to facilitating
existing sector or domain-specific committees to develop their own documents within their scopes in aharmonized manner.
17 goals of UN SDGs are well-known and various initiatives have been launched since SDGs were adopted.
For example, the issue of climate change and carbon emissions has been addressed with the highest priorityto protect future generations. However, at the same time, it is crucial to maintain and improve the quality of life
and the well-being of the current generation, especially in emerging economies, to realize an inclusive futurefor our society. For example, zero poverty with associated economic growth is an urgent issue, but naive
economic growth can cause an adverse impact on environmental issues. This kind of issue-linkages needs tobe decoupled. About 100 experts from 30 countries representing a variety of SDOs (e.g., ISO, IEC, ITU-T, JTC
1) participated in this discussion and published IWA 39 as a result of the discussion on this topic.
This IWA 39 discussion boils down to two key subjects to be dealt with in the future, namely, "transition" and"human-centered", which are also closely related to introducing new cyber technologies to a physical world asenablers or prohibitors. The transition to sustainability needs to be human-centered, in other words, acceptable
for the ordinary public without causing too much pain so that accelerate their behavioural change towardsustainability. This transition also needs to be based on practically implementable steps of change and shallnot be an indulgence to justify the permanent use of the current societal systems.
Recently published IWA 42 (https://www.iso.org/standard/85089.html) also indicates the importance of such
pathways to achieve net zero. It also includes key common concepts with this proposal. For example, "sciencebased pathway" is defined as "trajectory to achieve global net zero greenhouse gas emissions based on
scientific evidence" and 5.9 Equity and justice states "Mitigation actions take a human-centred approach,safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable people and communities".
Additionally, the IWA 39 discussion underlines the fact that although advanced technologies including cyber
physical systems are effective enablers to resolve the issue-linkages in a transition, they also may have societal
and environmental adverse impacts. For example, there is a remarkably rapid implementation of a metaverse
in various areas of societal systems. The metaverse can be a good enabler for releasing the physical constraintof people (e.g., aged, handicapped or suffering from illness), promoting gender equality and inclusivity, as wellas contributing to decrease GHG emission by making physical transportation unnecessary. However, it canbring various potential risks of adverse impacts on other sustainability issues, including mental and ethicalones; thus, stringent criteria are needed to protect humans from the adverse impacts of metaverse under thecontext of human-centered transition for sustainability. Moreover, other use cases have been identified, suchas high energy consumption associated with cryptocurrency and the risk of infringing basic human rights
associated with unlimited use of AI and big data.

3. Utilization of market mechanism
Our current lives are supported by various products and services that are provided by private and public sectors.
So as to promote the behavioral change toward the ideal status to solve societal issues, it is essential to developtransition pathways for those products and services as well as the operation of their providers and gradually
improve them according to the transition pathways. As explained earlier, the transition does not take place in
one night. So, it would be necessary to ensure that even each step of improvement is a part of the transitionpathway and surely leads to the final goal. For the communication and responsibility to the relevant
stakeholders, the providers of the products and services need to be accountable for their products, services
and operations to be aligned with and part of the predetermined transition pathways.
A series of standards that defines Human-centered transition pathways will provide service providers with acommon framework to explain to their shareholders and customers that their products and services are on thehuman-friendly way toward the ideal status, even if not perfect at present. This will promote the commercial
success of products and services that are aligned and contribute to the progress of the behavioral change tosolve societal issues. This will also provide opportunities for better financing.
For the above purposes, the users of standards should not be confused by unharmonized concepts andterminologies that are separately defined and used in each country, region and TC.
4. Relationship and complementarity with existing TCs
The proposed TC might have a part which overlaps with other TCs in terms of being relevant to societal issues.
However, the proposed TC is to provide the concept of human-centered pathways of transition that increases
the possibility of solving societal issues, and the tools to implement and evaluate the concept. Therefore, theproposed TC addresses a unique area that does not overlap with existing TCs.
There is a possibility that existing TCs addressing societal issue-related scopes develop their own transition
schemes. However, without harmonized principles and methodologies, their approaches will likely be slightly
different and inconsistent, which indicates the necessity of a horizontal function as proposed by this document.
This proposed new TC can provide harmonized common principles, terms and definitions, generic requirements
and guidance with metrics and indicators. Each TC will be able to utilize the deliverables of this proposed TC
to develop standards on their domain-specific frameworks for human-centered transition pathways.

This proposed TC provides relevant TCs that mainly address societal issues with the following benefits.
─ Opportunities to work on the same subject, "Human-centered transition", together with diverse experts suchas environment, ageing societies, circular economies, biodiversity and smart cities.
─ Able to harmonize the same concept, principle and framework in different societal-issue domains.
─ Expedite the development of transition standards in each committee by utilizing co-developed documents
in an essential part while focusing on the requirements, guidance and examples, which are based on its domainspecific expertise.
The reason for proposing a new TC instead of a coordination group such as SAG is that the coordination groupcannot develop and maintain documents that other committees can adequately utilize as references forrequirements or terms and definitions when developing their standards.
This proposed committee will adopt "Building block approach", where the development of a document starts
with consultation between relevant committees. Depending on the result, the choice may be setting up eitherliaisons (one way/two way) or JWG with the relevant committees. This proposed new committee will work on
only the remaining gaps.

PROPOSED INITIAL PROGRAMME OF WORK (Please use the field immediately below or attach an annex)(Please see the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Annex C.4.4 and C.4.5) For each item, the initial work programmeshall define the deliverable type and target dates. The initial work programme shall also assign priorities tothe different items.
This proposed committee may have multiple separated themes for programmes of work, as shown below. The
initial work program will be conducted in WG 1 addressing "Terms, principles, guiding framework, and general
requirements for implementing human-centered transition pathways".

However, other potential work items will be proposed later, such as under WG4 and WG 5. The work items
addressed in those specific areas will often overlap with the scope of an existing TC. In such a case, asdescribed above, no duplication of work will be confirmed, and in addition, cross-collaboration should beestablished through liaison or joint work.

RELATION OF THE PROPOSAL TO EXISTING INERNATIONAL STANDARDS AND ON-GOING
STANDARDIZATION WORK☒ The proposer has checked whether the proposed scope of the new committee overlaps with the scope ofany existing ISO or IEC committee or JTC1 sub-committee☒If an overlap or the potential for overlap is identified, the affected committee has been informed and anagreement has been reached between proposer and committee oni. modification/restriction of the scope of the proposal to avoid overlapping,ii. potential modification/restriction of the scope of the existing committee to avoid overlapping.

☐If agreement with the existing committee has not been reached, please explain why the proposal should
be approved.

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☐Have proposals on this subject been submitted into an existing committee and rejected? If so, what were
the reasons for rejection?

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LISTING OF RELEVANT DOCUMENTS (SUCH AS STANDARDS AND REGULATIONS) AT
INTERNATIONAL, REGIONAL AND NATIONAL LEVEL(Please see the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Annex C, Clause C.4.6)
ISO IWA 39
ISO IWA 42
OECD Guidance on Transition Finance: Ensuring Credibility of Corporate Climate Transition Plans
Transition planning | Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (gfanzero.com)
ASEAN Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance - ASEAN Main Portal

Climate Transition Finance Handbook » ICMA (icmagroup.org)
Hedonistic sustainability(https://worldarchitecture.org/articles/cgcez/bjarke_ingels_on_hedonistic_sustainability.html)
Agile governance (https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2021/0730_001.html)

LISTING OF RELEVANT COUNTRIES WHERE THE SUBJECT OF THE PROPOSAL IS IMPORTANT TOTHEIR NATIONAL COMMERCIAL INTERESTS(Please see the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Annex C, Clause C.4.8)
India, Indonesia, Slovenia, United Kingdom and other developed an d emerging economies
LISTING OF RELEVANT EXTERNAL INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OR INTERNAL PARTIES(OTHER THAN ISO AND/OR IEC COMMITTEES) TO BE ENGAGED AS LIASONS IN THIS WORK
(Please see the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Clause C.4.9)•TC 207 “Environmental management”•TC 268 “Sustainable cities and communities”•TC 309 "Governance of organizations"•TC 314 “Aging society”•TC 322 “Sustainable finance”•TC 323 “Circular economy”•TC 324 “Sharing economy”•TC 331 “Biodiversity”•IEC/TC 111 “Environmental standardization”•ISO/IEC JTC 1

IDENTIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF RELEVANT AFFECTED STAKEHOLDER CATEGORIES(Please see ISO Connect)
Benefits/Impacts/Examples
Industry and commerce – large industry

New markets of products and services for
Human-centered transition pathways will beestablished and will provide a wide range ofbusiness opportunities for industry andcommerce.

Industry and commerce – SMEs

SME is especially relevant to the humancentered aspects of the transition. The
inclusivity principle will help their transition
without pain and burden.

Government

Common principles and implementation
guidance for Human-centered transition will
prevent different industries or domains fromestablishing similar standards separately. Suchcommon principles and guidance will improvepolicy effectiveness and promote efficient statebudget execution, including procurements.

Consumers

Consumers will be able to recognize products
and services, as well as companies that areaccountable for the human centered transition tothe addressed societal issues without "wash".

LabourNew markets of products and services for
Human-centered transition pathways will beestablished, and labours will enjoy new
employment opportunities in line with decent
work stated in UN SDG's goal 8.

Academic and research bodies

Common principle and implementation guidance
will provide multiple use cases of Humancentered transition reported in the same
framework and data format. This will benefit
academia and research bodies to conductcomparative or statistical research.

Standards application businesses

Common principles and implementationguidance for Human-centered transition will
prevent different industries or domains fromestablishing similar standards separately. Suchcommon principles and general requirements will
reduce the burden of providing or referring tomultiple standards of transition for various
industries or domains.

Non-governmental organizations

NPO will be able to distinguish products andservices, as well as companies that areaccountable for the human-centered transition
from those that are not accountable for aligningto the course of change to resolve the addressedsocietal issues.

Other (please specify)

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EXPRESSION OF LEADERSHIP COMMITMENT FROM THE PROPOSER(Please see the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Annex C, Clause C.4.12)
JISC is willing to provide the committee secretariat if the proposal is approved.

☒ The proposer confirms that this proposal has been drafted in compliance with iso/iec directives,
part 1, annex c
SIGNATURE OF THE PROPOSER
JISCCOMMENTS OF THE ISO CENTRAL OFFICE (IF ANY)Click or tap here to enter text.

ATTACHMENT
Draft outline of the possible first document
Title: Principles and guidance for implementing human-centred transition pathways
Introduction
1. Scope
2. Normative references
3. Terms and definitions
4. Principles of human-centered transition pathways (HCTPs)
5. Guidance for implementing HCTPs
Annex A (informative) Examples of HCTPs
Bibliography