What do we mean by Open Environmental Risk Standard?
Environment
Everything on Earth.
Risk
Things that may create harm or a reduction in value.
Standard
With a lowercase ‘s’ — a standard of behaviour, cultural norms, guiding principles.
With a capital ‘S’ — a regulated, or otherwise strongly mandated, set of rules by which we must adhere.
Open
There are a few elements of open within our brief.
Open Data
Data that is openly licensed for use by anyone for any purpose for free. Ideally via an Open API.
Shared Data
Data that is addressable and accessible subject to specific rules placed around it (e.g. commercial license for proprietary information; with legal conditions). Ideally via an Open API.
Meta Data
Data that describes other data. For example, a data set that contains all the details of every home in the world might be described by meta data detailing what it contains (e.g. how a specific bit of data may be used), rather than the details (4 bedrooms exist at a specific property). We encourage meta data to be made available as Open Data. Ideally via an Open API.
Open API
A public interface that enables data access using the internet, enabling the discovery of the existence of data, and access to Open Data or Shared Data. Think of the Open API as the connection being open, not as wholly unfettered access to the content.
Open Standard
The documentation of proposed designs, processes, methods, rules, and so on that may be defined in a framework is openly licensed for use by anyone for any purpose. Any technologies that are developed explicitly to support the standard as a common good are also openly licensed.
Example: In Banking, the UK Open Banking Standard is open (Creative Commons license) and the banks are co-funding a Trust to develop Open Source (MIT license) software. Your personal bank statements are not Open Data — they are accessible as Shared Data; the definition of a mortgage products are Open Data. Both are accessible via Open APIs.