We are happy to announce that the first international standard on travel risk management – ISO 31030 — was published earlier this month, on 13 September. The Standard is now available for purchase from ISO or your National Standards body (SCC in Canada). If your organization sends employees on business assignments, whether domestically or internationally, this new standard will be of great interest to you.

Back in 2018 when the development of the standard began, no one foresaw the challenges that lay ahead with the global pandemic, but it is testimony to the creators of the standard – a group of travel risk management (TRM) experts from around the world including EBI Consulting vice-president Joël Marier – that they were able to progress the project with such restricted opportunities for “in-person” engagement.

The publication of the standard is timely as many industries start to think about increasing travel again over the next few years. Many (if not most) organizations where travel is an essential requirement of their activities are likely to be reviewing their priorities and policies and re-considering their objectives, as well as looking to manage the effect of uncertainty on those objectives. ISO 31030 will provide a structured framework for them to do so. The Covid-19 pandemic has also increased awareness of health and well-being issues and brought terms like risk assessment into more common vocabulary.

EBI Consulting can help your organization take advantage of these best practices from ISO to improve your operations and your travel safety. A good first step would be to familiarize yourself with the key elements of the standard. You can order it through ISO or read an extract on ISO website.

Another good step would be to take the lead and help organize a cross-department team to review the implications and response within your company. This is a good opportunity to raise travel safety awareness and to ensure the alignment of the values of your organization with its travel safety practices.
As well, you may wish to have an external organization do an audit of your travel safety policies and operations. For more information, please contact Joel Marier.

The work on a new ISO standard on Managing Risk for Youth and School Trips has reached an exciting new phase: the actual crafting of the standard.

Following the green light of the approval by ISO/COPOLCO in Zimbabwe in 2019 and the positive ballot in 2020 by the ISO community on the roadmap (with fifteen countries expressing an interest to participate by offering to make available experts and documentation), the ISO TMB (Technical Management Board) considered the votes and assigned this work to TC 262, the technical committee responsible for Risk Management. Now another international ballot has been held to confirm a convenor to shepherd the process to its completion. Joël Marier, Vice President of EBI Consulting, was elected to the position and he offers his grateful thanks for the support of the international community. The work may now start in earnest and is projected to be completed in three years.

The scope of this new standard will provide guidance for managing risk for youth (in particular, minors due to their specific vulnerabilities) and school trips for both domestic and international travel.

If you have any questions or want to know more about the process or to become involved, please contact us at: joel.marier@ebiconsulting.ca