American National Standard
A standard approved by ANSI as having been developed under its Essential Requirements: ten due-process criteria about how a document is made, none of which concerns what it costs to buy.
ANSI does not write standards. It accredits the bodies that do, and approves a document as an American National Standard when the developer shows it followed the ANSI Essential Requirements. Due process there means that anybody with a direct and material interest has the right to express a position, have it considered, and appeal. The requirements are ten: openness, lack of dominance, balance, coordination and harmonisation, notification, consideration of views and objections, a documented consensus vote, an appeals mechanism, written procedures, and compliance with ANSI’s normative policies. Balance is quantified by a historical criterion: no single interest category more than one-third of a consensus body for a safety-related standard, or a majority otherwise. The names, affiliations and interest categories of the consensus body are available to interested parties on request.
The designation is what a reader can check. An approved document carries the ANSI mark or the words “an American National Standard” and a designation such as ANSI/ASD 123-2021, and ANSI’s procedures forbid either on a document that has not been approved. So a commissioning standard designated ANSI/ASHRAE/IES went through the process; a document titled ASHRAE Guideline did not, and its own front matter says so. That is a fact about procedure, not about quality, and the guideline may be the better read.
What the ten requirements say nothing about is the price of the finished document. The openness requirement bars undue financial barriers to participation, meaning to joining the committee, not to buying the result. The nearest ANSI comes to the subject is the other way round: an American National Standard may not require the purchase of proprietary products, licences or copyrighted materials as a condition of implementing it, other than third-party standards incorporated by reference. So under the field’s own criteria, a sold standard is a standard, and “if they sell it, it is not one” is not an argument available to anybody.
Sources
ANSI Essential Requirements: Due process requirements for American National Standards, January 2025 edition, sections 1.0 to 1.10 for the ten requirements and the definition of due process, 2.1 for the roster, 2.3 for the balance criteria, 3.2.2 for the bar on requiring proprietary or copyrighted materials, 4.4 for the designation. Read in full 6 September 2026. ASHRAE Guideline 0-2019, front matter, for a document stating that it was not submitted to ANSI.
Read the sources
- ANSI Essential Requirements: Due process requirements for American National StandardsJanuary 2025 edition; read 2026-09-06.Free, 30 pages, and ANSI permits copying if the text is unaltered and its copyright noted. Section 1.0 defines due process and sets the ten requirements; 2.1 makes the consensus body’s roster available on request; 2.3 gives the historical balance criteria; 3.2.2 bars an ANS from requiring the purchase of copyrighted material; 4.4 governs the designation. None of it concerns the price of the finished document. Read in full 6 September 2026.
- ASHRAE Guideline 0-2019, The Commissioning Process, front matter and pages 1 to 42019 edition, preview pages; read 2026-09-06.The preview ANSI’s store publishes at a stable address, covering the front matter and pages 1 to 4. The front matter states the procedure the guideline was developed under and that it was not submitted to ANSI, and the foreword sets it beside Standard 202.