ISO 50001

The standard helping organizations to continually improve their energy performance and management

Who should be interested in the Energy Management Standard?

If you want to continually improve the energy performance of your organization and its supporting management system, then BS EN ISO 50001:2018 is for you. Regardless of your organization’s size, location or industry, this standard can help you reduce energy costs, comply with legislation and increase your sustainability. It does so irrespective of the quantity of energy you currently use or the types of energy you consume. If you are responsible for managing energy within your organization or are a senior leader looking to integrate better energy management into your business strategy and transform how you manage energy, the revised ISO 50001 Energy Management Standard can help.

Why the interest in energy management – what’s the opportunity?

A healthy economy depends on a healthy environment. Energy is essential in the production of goods and services and, as our industries have grown, so has our energy use. The scale of our negative environmental impact, both on our planet and its populations, has never been greater. To ensure our businesses can continue to thrive, it is in everyone’s interest to safeguard our environment. Governments, the world over, need everyone to embrace efficient production and operating processes. That’s why organizations are being regulated and encouraged to: improve their energy performance and that of their supply chains reduce greenhouse gas emissions invest in clean energy technologies and infrastructure. Organizations are now taking increased responsibility to improve how they manage their energy, identify risks and opportunities, and become more resilient. The Energy Management Standard enables you to achieve effective energy management and performance, whilst meeting associated legal requirements.

How can energy management benefit my business?

Whether you are legally obligated or simply a responsibly-minded organization, better managing your energy is a great idea that can save you energy and money. A good energy management system gives you a handle on your organization’s energy use. It ensures you understand how your organization uses energy for manufacturing, heating, cooling and lighting etc and the various opportunities to reduce your energy usage. Once you have a list of opportunities, how do you implement them? How do you continually seek to control and improve? The standard’s energy management system is all about proactively planning and embedding the right practices and behaviours to continually improve your organization’s energy performance. It aligns energy improvements with the strategy of the organization, engaging across the organization to put in place a system to continually seek improvements in energy use, whether in operations, procurement, design or retrofits. Doing this well, through a structured manner, has been demonstrated to save energy, costs and CO2emissions.

ISO 50001:2018 outlines the energy management processes considered to be the current best practice globally. It provides a shortlist of activities for establishing policies, processes, procedures and specific energy-tasks to meet your organization’s energy objectives. It requires the organization to define the desired energy performance, and work towards achieving the stated objective.
As with other ISO management system standards, the energy management system in ISO 50001 is based on the Plan, Do, Check and Act framework.

How will the Energy Management Standard benefit my organization?

Implementing this standard provides a systematic way to continually improve your organization’s energy performance and energy management system. Drawing on the knowledge and experience of energy management experts globally, the standard does not dictate what your organization’s energy targets should be or how your energy performance improvement will be demonstrated. It will help you reduce your energy costs, grow more sustainably, become more resilient and comply with legislation.

Many UK organizations use the standard as a tool to assess and improve their energy management, others choose to formally achieve certification to the standard.