While the plenary clarified that the new standards have no intention to impede the operation of other private standards on animal welfare, Eurogroup welcomes the initiative announced by ISO to provide standards that will act as a global tool for animal welfare management rather than just a prescriptive standard.

Animal welfare organisations including Eurogroup, and its member organisations RSPCA, HSI and WSPA attended the meeting and were offered the opportunity to present our views on how the technical specification should be developed and what they should look like. Among the main suggestions presented was the need to harmonise rather than cause confusion and duplicate existing international standards.

Animal welfare organisations also highlighted the need to incorporate the development of a global auditing infrastructure and a continuous improvement loop for animal welfare that harmonises existing and emerging private standards and provides a basis for comparability.