For purposes of trade, registration and legislation, and for use in popular and scientific publications, pesticides need names that are short, distinctive, non-proprietary and widely-accepted. Systematic chemical names are rarely short and are not convenient for general use, and so standards bodies assign common names to the active ingredients of pesticides.
More than 1100 of these official common names for pesticides have been assigned by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This Compendium is believed to be the only place where all of the ISO-approved standard names of chemical pesticides are listed.
The Compendium contains much more than ISO common names, with nomenclature data sheets for more than 1700 different active ingredients and for more than 350 ester and salt derivatives, made accessible by a comprehensive set of indexes and a classification.