An emerging epistemic community: Power relations in international sustainability standardisation

Standards can help to improve sustainability of modern production systems. This paper studies the International Standardisation Organisation’s (ISO) process of development of standards for circular economy and aims to answer the following research question: “ How are international sustainability standards created and how do these processes evolve? ” The concept of epistemic community is employed to understand who creates the international standards for circular economy, whilst resources (in particular, knowledge) and time of the experts are identified as important factors influencing how power relations unfold in this epistemic community. In studying the process in focus, we apply a qualitative research methodology. Overall, our findings show that knowledge of experts participating in the circular economy epistemic community is embedded in different organisational, sectoral and national settings. In addition to knowledge, the time when the delegations have joined the process matters, as well as the roles the actors take in the process. The roles that actors take help us understand how power relations unfold in the standardisation settings guided by the principles of consensus.