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5. Reclassifying Menstrual Products

5.3. Reclassifying on the institutional level:

5.3.3. Getting the right actors on board

One of the most important prerequisites for standardization to occur in the first place is getting the right actors on board. This is likely to contribute to destigmatization, not least by enabling standardization, but also because it signals that all the relevant stakeholders in the field take the matter of menstrual products, their users, and their users’ safety seriously. The right actors generally consist of the dominant players in the field who are usually the same as those who can and will finance the process. Hence, the most important actors to get onboard are the large, powerful manufacturers with resources. This is mainly because, from an ISO and SIS perspective, standardization is first and foremost for the benefit of industry and if the largest actors in the industry are not represented in the process, it is not regarded as important or beneficial enough for them to engage. Thus, the process likely will not proceed.

In the case of the menstrual product field in Sweden and from SIS’s perspective, the most important actor is Essity, being the largest Swedish player on the market and sixth largest in the field, globally (Euromonitor International, 2020). Early on in the process, SIS’s perspective was distinct, in the sense that their understanding of what was important to standardize was directly aligned with the large industry representatives. Helene Edmark at SIS stated that,

“If Essity are not interested at all whatsoever, then it is not important to standardize because they hold such a large part of the market share and are such an important actor so, if we are to drive the standardization from a Swedish perspective, then the most important actors also have to think it is important. Otherwise, it is not important. We are not a mutual admiration society that develops standards because we think they are important; we have to be driven by a need. And Essity, the largest actor, expressed an interest in the end of 2017…”

Further, it is also important to engage a heterogeneous group of participants in the process, in order to ensure that all different stakeholder interests are represented. Otherwise, the standard risks being skewed disproportionately toward industry interests without sufficient concern toward, for instance,

consumers. Cecilia Beskow, Director of Standardization at SIS at the time, stated that,

“To get any kind of traction and ability to raise it on an international level, it has to be very well anchored both in industry and in regulative agencies, because starting a new standardization initiative with only the industry represented is not good because then we’ll only get an absorption standard or something that suits them. So, it’s important to get a breadth of stakeholders, so that it is done properly, not least the consumer side.”

In other words, there is a risk implied if there is narrow representation from the field. Another risk implied when large corporations do engage in a project, is that although there are other stakeholders involved, larger actors might want to allocate more people around the standardization discussion table and hold greater influence over the outcome. Because the initiative to standardize menstrual products in this case came from myself, with a concern for consumer safety, and other actors with similar concerns showed commitment early on, less focus was placed on such risks in this particular process. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that the Director of Standardization emphasizes the importance of considering consumer interests in relation to industry interests, a standpoint that was not expressed to the same extent by her colleagues at the beginning of the process.

Discussions about standardizing menstrual products had started in the end of 2016, and it was about a year later that Essity responded by stating that they had an interest in the area. Thereafter, they expressed little to no engagement in the matter; it was not until the end of 2019 that they sat down at a table to discuss the matter with other actors. As a consequence of Essity’s lukewarm interest, the discussion at SIS has over these years continuously gone back and forth between being very industry focused and being focused on finding solutions to carry out the project without Essity on board. This continued work is most likely due to the strong engagement from other actors in the field, pushing for standardization.

Simultaneously, it seems as though this engagement created a less rigid understanding of what was important to standardize from a SIS perspective. This became clear when they decided that the process should persist regardless of whether SIS would come on board or not. Edmark stated that,

“We will keep going to meetings [with Essity] and make sure we have the important actors with us, and then whether we have everyone with us or not will not matter, because we will go through with it regardless.”

When we were finally able to get Essity to a stakeholder meeting at SIS, they were joined by the European industry organization, EDANA. Together, they announced at the meeting that they were creating a standard for testing of chemical residue among their member organizations. Simultaneously, they argued throughout the meeting that they saw no need for standardization. When confronted about the apparent contradiction, they had no response. As a result, SIS decided to proceed with the standardization by appealing to the consumer protection perspective and ISO’s consumer branch COPOLCO (Consumer Policy Committee of the ISO).

The way SIS approaches standardization, namely by collecting all relevant stakeholders and attempting to reach consent among them is a very difficult way to standardize. An alternative way, which seems to be more common in, for instance, the United States, is by drafting a standard among those actors already on board and then presenting it to the remaining relevant stakeholders for review.

Moscherosch argued that,

“Should the manufacturers, and I’m not only talking about the large scale but also the small-scale manufacturers, review that standard? Absolutely, they should give their input, but start with something, throw it out, and let people comment. That’s much easier for everybody than if you say ‘Oh, we’re going to collect all those people together and then we all together develop a standard.’ That’s not going to happen. You can spend a career on this and not get anywhere. But it’s much easier to develop a draft standard and see what others think.”

Furthermore, had there been greater pressure from consumers, regular SIS standardization may have been possible. This could have been triggered if, for instance, the Chemicals Agency’s report was to show that the safety of menstrual products was poor. In other words, in order to get the right actors on board, problems need to be large enough to rally consumers and/or the media. Edmark stated that,

“Pressure from consumers is not strong enough; we’re not there yet. If the Consumer Agency or the Swedish Consumers’ Association were to see that pressure, that would be proof that this is needed, which would speed up the

standardization. If mass media were to discover that the quality isn’t what it should be, Essity would be on board instantly.”

In the incontinence area, Essity had found that there were problems with the tests that were the industry standards, hence, not developed in accordance with international standardization protocol through participatory processes. Ellen Riise, Senior Environmental Specialist, however, did not find that there were any problems with the testing in the menstrual product industry, and thus did not see the same need for standardization of menstrual product testing methods. Helene Edmark, who had spoken to Riise about the matter, explained that,

“I understand it all, but in the incontinence area we’ve had problems with the tests because they have been inadequate, the tests that the market have had as a common standard, that is. That’s why they wanted to participate and affect that area, but they didn’t think menstrual products had the same problem.”

In summary, in order for standardization processes toward destigmatization to gain traction, critical actors that dominate the market and the existing discourse in the field need to be on board. Without their support, standardization organizations and other participating actors are taking the risk that the standard might not be adopted once established, making the work and money they spent on it redundant. One way around this potential barrier, however, is gaining the support of consumers through, for instance, consumer organizations or the media, which could lead to large manufacturers engaging for fear of tarnishing their reputation. Moreover, it is clear that a barrier standing in the way of actors participating in standardization, is that they have not understood the goals of the standardization among those already engaged. This will be discussed in the subsequent section.