How do we build consensus on a global net-zero standard?

Article 4 in the series: Building a Net Zero Transition Governance Architecture

Creating a global standard for net-zero-aligned organisations requires more than technical expertise. It requires countries and stakeholders with different circumstances to work towards common rules. The continuing development of ISO/DIS 14060 Net Zero Aligned Organizations shows how participation, consultation, revision and learning can form part of the process of building international consensus.

Why has the sequence of this series changed?

At the end of Article 3, we stated that the next article would examine how the emerging ISO/DIS 14060 Net Zero Aligned Organizations standard (ISO/DIS 14060) could interact with South Africa’s proposed carbon-budget and mitigation-plan regulations. That article will still be written, but it has been postponed because South Africa’s draft regulations have been through stakeholder consultation and final regulations have not yet been published.

Meanwhile, ISO/DIS 14060 has itself reached an important point in its development. Following a 12-week international ballot that closed in September 2026, the draft did not receive the level of approval required to advance in its current form. National standards bodies from 88 countries participated and close to 5,000 comments were submitted. ISO/DIS 14060 remains under development (Source: Trellis).

We realised that comparing two frameworks while both are changing risks producing conclusions that are quickly overtaken by events. So the comparison of the two frameworks in the context of South African regulations will be addressed later in this series of posts, when the two frameworks are sufficiently settled.

However, the developments related to ISO/DIS 14060 raise another question: what can the process of building consensus around a global net zero standard teach us about governing the transition itself?

A global standard requires a global conversation

ISO describes the 14060 draft international standard as establishing requirements for organisations to demonstrate that their net-zero strategies, targets and delivery are compatible with reaching net zero, and that they are making credible and verifiable progress towards global net zero in line with the Paris Agreement (ISO 14060 project page).

The development of the standard to date has involved hundreds of experts from business, government, academia, civil society and standards bodies, followed by consultation through ISO’s national members (ISO announcement). This matters because international standards do not operate in an institutional vacuum: they eventually have to work in countries with different economies, regulatory systems, emissions profiles, development needs and institutional frameworks.

Governance is about more than writing rules

The first article in this series introduced ZeniZeni’s emerging Net Zero Transition Governance Architecture (NZTGA). One idea behind the architecture is that governing the transition requires more than identifying institutions and assigning responsibilities. It also requires principles governing how decisions are made and implemented.

The ISO process provides an opportunity to begin making some of those principles more explicit.

Participation matters because people and institutions affected by rules should have meaningful opportunities to contribute to their development.

Transparency matters because stakeholders need sufficient information to understand the rules, their purpose and how decisions are reached.

Accountability matters because institutions and organisations should be answerable for their decisions and performance. And transparency as a subset of accountability matters because stakeholders need sufficient information to understand the rules, their purpose and how decisions are reached.

Continuous learning and adaptation matter because climate science, technology, economic circumstances and our understanding of how transition policies work do not remain static. Indeed, the change in sequence of this series is itself a small example of this: ZeniZeni's analysis needed to adjust when the rules being analysed changed.

Consensus does not require uniformity

A global standard faces a difficult challenge: it needs enough consistency for the description net-zero aligned to have meaningful and credible content across borders. At the same time, organisations operate within very different national circumstances. This connects directly with the question explored in Article 3: how can a finite global carbon budget be translated into national, sectoral and ultimately organisational pathways fairly?

The same tension appears in standard-setting: global rules need to preserve environmental integrity while recognising legitimate differences in national circumstances.

The objective of a global standard cannot therefore simply be uniformity.

It requires sufficient international harmonisation to create credibility and comparability, alongside sufficient differentiation to make implementation both legitimate and workable.

Informed revision is an essential part of good governance

The fact that ISO/DIS 14060 has not progressed directly to the next stage should not automatically be interpreted as a failure of the standards-development process. ISO’s International Harmonized Stage Codes show that consultation, voting and reconsideration are built into that process.

ISO/DIS 14060 is currently at Stage 40.60 Close of voting (ISO 14060 project page). From there, the ISO process explicitly provides for different outcomes. These include referring a Draft International Standard back to the relevant technical committee or subcommittee, deciding that a new DIS ballot is required, or approving the DIS to progress towards registration as a Final Draft International Standard (ISO International Harmonized Stage Codes).

In other words, the ISO process anticipates that a draft may not immediately achieve sufficient consensus to progress. Disagreement is not external to the process of building international consensus: the process provides mechanisms for accommodating it.

ISO’s International Harmonized Stage Codes. ISO/DIS 14060 is currently at substage 40.60 — Close of voting, under the 40 Enquiry stage (see diagram below). The ISO process provides several possible routes following this stage, including referral back to committee, circulation for a new DIS ballot, or progression towards a Final Draft International Standard. Seen through a governance lens, this is important.

Diagram 1 – ISO’s International harmonized stage codes

Source: International Organization for Standardization (ISO), International Harmonized Stage Codes. Screenshot accessed September 2026.

Participation only matters if feedback can influence outcomes and continuous learning only matters if institutions are capable of revising their approaches.

The important test is therefore not whether a draft proceeds unchanged. It is whether the process can absorb different perspectives while ultimately producing rules that are credible, workable and consistent with the environmental objective they exist to serve.

Why does this matter for countries?

Countries should not simply receive global transition standards after they have been designed elsewhere. Their governments, businesses, workers, researchers, financial institutions and civil society organisations have experience that can help shape how global principles work in practice in their jurisdictions. That is one reason why participation through national standards bodies such as SABS matters.

It is also important for countries that are home to multinational organisations that need to consider the transition realities of several different countries. That is why ZeniZeni sees value in convening discussions around international standards as part of its wider work on the Net Zero Transition Governance Architecture.

The relationship should work in both directions: global standards should inform national implementation, and national experience should inform global standards.

That is more than consultation: it is part of building a genuinely global governance architecture for the transition.

What happens next?

ISO 14060 remains under development (ISO 14060 project page) which means that the international conversation about the requirements for a credible net-zero-aligned organisation is not finished. For the Net Zero Transition Governance Architecture, the experience also points towards a broader lesson:

How the rules of the global transition are developed matters as much as what those rules ultimately say.

A credible transition architecture clearly requires institutions, including standards bodies. But it also requires principles and characteristics to make those institutions legitimate and effective. In ZeniZeni’s view, key principles include, among others, participation and accountability, and key characteristics include the capacity to learn and adapt.

The continuing development of ISO 14060 therefore provides much more than a standard to analyse and deliberate on. It provides a real-world example through which to examine how a Net Zero Transition Governance Architecture works in practice.

Next in the series

Who decides whether a net-zero claim can be trusted?

Article 5 will examine the quality infrastructure behind credible transition claims, including standards, measurement, verification, assurance and accreditation, and the institutions responsible for making that system work.

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