27
ISO 50001 - the International Energy Management Standard Launch Date: Q3 2011
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the world’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to developing and publishing standards internationally, will launch the new ISO 50001 – the International Energy Management Standard – sometime during the third quarter of 2011. This is an important development in the green building industry, and one that will be anticipated with great optimism.
The ISO 50001 system will provide a framework to be used by commercial facilities, industrial plants, and other organizations for managing energy at all levels and in every economic sector. As an international standard that is likely to be adopted fairly quickly and widely, this new system will be instrumental in accelerating the adoption of energy efficiency techniques worldwide.
The ISO energy management committee chair, Edwin Piñero, recently commented that, “ISO 50001 provides a proven model that helps organizations systematically plan and manage their energy use. With a strong focus on performance and continual improvement, ISO 50001 will contribute to enhanced energy efficiency and prudent energy use. An extremely high level of consensus drove our committee’s fast progress toward publication – proof that the world needs and wants this standard.”
The ISO 50001 standard will dovetail nicely with both the ISO 9001 standard for quality management and the ISO 14001 standard for environmental management. ISO has identified the following benefits of this new approach to energy management:
- A framework for integrating energy efficiency into management practices
- Making better use of existing energy-consuming assets
- Benchmarking, measuring, documenting, and reporting energy intensity improvements and their projected impact on reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Transparency and communication on the management of energy resources
- Energy management best practices and good energy management behaviours
- Evaluating and prioritizing the implementation of new energy-efficient technologies
- A framework for promoting energy efficiency throughout the supply chain
- Energy management improvements in the context of GHG emission reduction projects.
The ISO 50001 system is not in and of itself a set of requirements for energy performance, but rather a set of methods that any organization can use to develop their own benchmarks for energy management. To achieve the ISO certification, a company must set their targets and demonstrate that they have met them.
With widespread adoption it is estimated that the new ISO 50001 standard could influence up to 60% of the world’s energy use.
