Progress on energy management standard

The future ISO 50001 standard for energy management was recently approved as a Draft International Standard (DIS).

ISO 50001 will establish a framework for industrial plants, commercial facilities or entire organisations to manage energy. Targeting broad applicability across national economic sectors, it is estimated that the standard could influence up to 60% of the world’s energy use.

The document is based on the common elements found in all of ISO’s management system standards, assuring a high level of compatibility with ISO 9001 (quality management) and ISO 14001 (environmental management). ISO 50001 will provide the following benefits:

• 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 prioritising 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
• ISO 50001 is being developed by ISO project committee ISO/PC 242, Energy management. The secretariat of ISO/PC 242 is provided by the partnership of the ISO members for the USA (ANSI) and Brazil (ABNT). Forty-two ISO member countries are participating in its development, with another 10 as observers.

Now that ISO 50001 has advanced to the DIS stage, national member bodies of ISO have been invited to vote and comment on the text of the standard during the five-month balloting period.

If the outcome of the DIS voting is positive, the modified document will then be circulated to the ISO members as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS). If that vote is positive, ISO 50001 is expected to be published as an International Standard by early 2011.