Who are we?
ISO/TC 81 is the international technical committee that is nominally responsible for creating, updating and maintaining the ISO standards for common names of pesticides (ISO 1750) and for preferred names of other pesticides that do not require common names (ISO 765).
However, in practice, the ISO 1750 Maintenance Agency has been responsible for carrying out all of the work of processing applications and preparing standards since 2017. The Agency has been responsible for maintaining the XML, SVG, XSL and DTD files since 2021.
The committee was created in 1953 and the secretariat was assigned to the British Standards Institution (BSI), which had been standardising common names since 1948. The first plenary meeting was held in 1955. On 1st September 2024, the secretariats of TC 81 and the ISO 1750 Maintenance Agency were transferred from BSI to the Standardization Administration of China (SAC).
Our standards
The Agency’s flagship standard is ISO 1750 Pesticides and other agrochemicals — Common names, for which the data are updated annually because several new common names are approved each year.
We also maintain ISO 765 Pesticides considered not to require common names, which is going to be withdrawn. Its data will be incorporated in a new and enlarged edition of ISO 1750.
We also publish a free PDF to assist manufacturers who wish to propose common names (Selecting common names for pesticides and other agrochemicals).
How do we work?
The members of the ISO 1750 Maintenance Agency carry out all of the work of processing applications, preparing standards, maintaining up-to-date private versions of the XML data set and the SVG image files, and preparing the annual updates of the XML data set and SVG image files for customers.
Pesticide manufacturers submit their proposed common names and preferred names and their supporting data to the Committee Manager. The members of the Maintenance Agency then check them, to ensure that they are correct and complete and that they comply with the guidelines. We check the IUPAC systematic names for conformity with the rules, we draw structural formulae that show similarity with existing compounds, and we generate standard InChIs and InChIKeys. The data are checked or generated by members of the Maintenance Agency; we do not use Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Committee Manager then circulates proposed names to the member bodies of ISO/TC 81 for provisional approval.
Everyone with an interest in pesticides needs to be made aware of new names, so when they are provisionally approved we announce them on the News page of this website, with a 6-month window for objections (such as alleged infringement of trademarks) to be lodged. If there are no objections, names become “approved”.
Every 12 months, ISO publishes the newly-approved names and new SVG image files by including them in an updated version of the XML data set for customers. We include a list of the new names in the announcement of the update on the News page of this website.
Related ISO pages
Want to get involved?
Standards are developed by the people who need them – that could mean you. Technical committees include experts from both standards and industry and these experts are put forward by ISO’s national members. If you want to help shape future standards in your field, contact your national member
New common names
Common names that have been provisionally approved are announced on the News page, with a 6-month window for objections to be lodged.
Approved and published common names are also announced on the News page.
Participation
Several national standards bodies contribute to the work of TC 81, some as participating members and others as observing members. Contacts for the national standards bodies can be found here.
We are also in liaison with several organizations with an interest in pesticides, including the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), the Collaborative International Pesticides Analytical Council (CIPAC), the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO), the European Union (EU), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO).