The Natural Refrigeration

IIAR approved 18 Consensus Body replacements on its three consensus bodies for IIAR standards. The replacements are routine maintenance required by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and are completed a minimum of every five years or when individuals are no longer participating.

IIAR maintains three consensus bodies, 1357, 24689 and CO2&HC. The bodies are the near-final stage of approval for IIAR standards 1,3,5, and 7, and 2,4,6,8, and 9, respectively. The CO2&HC body manages CO2 and hydrocarbons (HC).

Replacements to the consensus bodies can be done anytime, but the recent round of replacements were part of an overall periodic maintenance effort to meet IIAR’s “Procedures for the Development of IIAR Standards” and ANSI’s “Essential Requirements.”

Tony Lundell, IIAR’s Senior Director of Standards and Safety said IIARs replacements were recently completed in preparation for an upcoming Consensus Ballot Vote for a CO2 Addendum and the IIAR HC Standard in development, and to prepare for an upcoming regular ANSI audit in May 2027. “These replacements were required so that our new consensus body members could continue to participate through 2028 at a minimum,” said Lundell.

Lundell said serving on one of IIAR’s consensus bodies is an opportunity for IIAR members to get directly involved in confirming the work that occurs when developing standards. “Our consensus body members really want to be involved because they can take a direct interest in the standards they’re responsible for by keeping abreast of their development and ensuring the procedures are followed.”

The consensus body members may also participate in development of specific content during public reviews. Lundell added that the experience and professional visibility IIAR members can gain from working on standards is invaluable.

“Serving on a consensus body is important because it allows members to directly know that standards are generally appropriate and have been developed in a fair, open, and balanced way.

ANSI has a set of requirements that essentially require a cognizant body of people to be convened to approve a standard, said Eric Smith, IIAR’s Vice President of Technology, Advocacy, Research and Publications.

“In many standards development organizations, there is a committee in charge of developing and approving standards, and the detail work is done by subcommittees. When a subcommittee finishes their work, it gets passed to the main committee, which is the consensus body. IIAR takes this a step further by establishing independent consensus bodies.”

Smith said IIAR’s consensus bodies are open to participation by end users, manufacturers, consultants, contractors, and general interest stakeholders. IIAR formed consensus bodies about 18 years ago when the current method of standards development was started by ANSI.

“Around 2008, ANSI changed the way that their essential requirements for the development of standards are done. Part of these requirements required that every standard had to be approved by a consensus body,” said Smith.

“In IIAR’s case, it was felt that the standards committee was, at the time, a somewhat smaller group of people and that the result of such an insular group was that our standards wouldn’t necessarily get objective outside opinions from other stakeholders.”

At the time, IIAR worked with ANSI to decide that in addition to the IIAR Standards Committee that develops the standards, there should be a somewhat uninvolved group that should not only review standards’ concepts, but should also review that the process of development is fair and balanced such that all views and considerations are taken into account, said Smith.

IIAR invites consensus body members to provide specific comment as standards are being developed but will also ask them to review evidence of procedural compliance once the standard has been developed, said Smith. “There are many groups involved in standards development, including the subcommittees who work on the standard, public commenters, the overall Standards Committee, the Board of Directors and the Consensus Body. With all of these layers of review and approval, the industry can be assured that standards are well developed.