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A beginners guide to ISO50001 the global standard for Energy Management

Systems (December 2011)

Following on from the introduction of the British Standard for Energy Management Systems
BSEN16001: 2009 the international standard for Energy Management Systems
ISO50001:2011(1) was introduced mid June to bring harmonisation to the area.

There is a lot of information in the ether as to the opportunity from introducing the standard
but little on the background of the standard, what it can deliver and how it interacts with
other standards and systems. In this beginners guide I want to give a high level review to
the standard and not consider the implementation, which brings wider discussion.

ISO50001 is an international standard that can and will be applied anywhere in

the world. In some jurisdictions it will replace existing standards. For example, in the United
Kingdom it will replace BSEN16001:2009, which when published was written in such
a way to be compatible with the expected International standard.

The UK and in particular influential and passionate groups of energy professionals such as
the Energy Services and Technology Association (ESTA)(2) were instrumental in encouraging
a fast track of 16001 to ensure that the international standard was influenced by proven
methodologies.

The Energy Management System (EnMS) is fully endorsed by ISO5001. A management

system is described as the formalisation of practices/processes and their documentation to a
high level policy statement. A key factor of the policy is that it assigns management
responsibility for Energy management.

A stated intention of ISO50001 is to incorporate energy management into

everyday organizational practices. The primary management model behind any ISO
management system is the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) continual
improvement framework. A management model that can be adapted to produce a number
of stages of implementation such as the carbonexpressway (3).

Do we need an international standard?

There have been several attempts at national standards in several countries without really
having an impact due simply due to the lack of importance placed upon energy use. This
changed with the emphasis on climate change, green house gasses and in particular
emissions from energy in use following the Kyoto accord.

There are many that believe that ISO14001 Environmental Management Systems (EMS)(4)
covers energy use effectively enough, mitigating the need for a specific standard for energy
management. The belief is true; ISO14001 does indeed cover all environmental impacts,
including energy consumption but only in a very generic way and it is an option to use.

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Energy professionals are united in their belief that energy consumption from direct and
indirect sources, carbon footprint scope one and two elements, requires as greater focus. In
a large number of segments scope one and two emissions cover greater than 80% of all
emissions, yet under ISO14001 can get less attention than emissions from waste.

It was this belief that led to the creation of an international working group to development
the international standard for energy management systems, ISO50001.

There are many common parts to 50001 to that of 9001 and 14001; particularly evident is
the terminology used, management system speak, often new to seasoned energy
professionals. Also common is the structure, in effect the PDCA model.

Whilst there are common parts to the management system standards there are also
significant differences. The largest difference is in the driver to certification, in the case of
9001 and more recently in the last decade 14001, organisaitons are finding certification to
quality and environmental standard as essential as good financial standing to become a
supplier to certain groups.

Energy management standards are current a requirement in the supply chain, I would hope
that this does change over time to encourage uptake. It does however show evidence to
support organisations green credentials, something that has been popularised by the Carbon
Trust Standard(5) and a myriad of others since the introduction of the Carbon Reduction
Commitment(6) early action metrics(7).

What will implementing 50001 achieve?

The standard provides the framework for a formal, procedure driven management
system to support energy management activities, and as with14001 is based upon the
encouragement of making continual improvements. The say that Rome wasnt built in a day,
neither is a good, robust energy management system.

Following the guidance and implementing procedure will lead to energy reductions and in
turn cost reductions. Different organisations will have different results, your organisation
could see dramatic reductions from kick off 5-10-20% and then more modest reductions, or
even, just as positive no increase! Or maybe modest reductions to begin with until process
and procedures are embraced and behaviour is changed.

Whilst the implementation of 50001 will undoubtedly lead to change it would be

recommended to accompany implementation with sector specific benchmarking, select an
energy performance indicator that enables comparison with organisations and operations of
a similar type. For the public sector this may be something as simple as Operational Ratings
through the wide spread use of Display Energy Certificates (8).

The absolute value of implementation is the ability to cement behaviour change into the
ethos of an organisation, if good practice is followed as the standard poor energy
management will be difficult to go back to regardless of the change of an energy manager
or facilities team.

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Something that is important to understand is that success will come at a cost; the good
news is that this can be managed well if savings are re-invested into the program. Just
implementing a standard alone will not sustain ongoing savings, for this investment is
required, both financial and time.

What will be uncovered will be issues with data integrity, which could lead to immediate
financial savings but also identify areas requiring improvement metering. Analysis of energy
data will identify areas of poor plant and operational efficiency, again potentially leading to
immediate financial savings but also identifying areas for capital investment.

Employee and stakeholder engagement also need to be well managed an integrated

management system that will enable you to provide different stakeholders with different
information, like digitalenergy(9) for example will become a must have very quickly.

So do you need to consider ISO50001 for your organisation?

Formal standards dont suit all organisations but even if only part implemented would be
able to offer steps forward to sustainable reductions and of course cost savings.

So the answer is yes your organsiation should consider ISO50001 to see how it would fit,
what the benefits would be and what would be required to enable implementation, a good
starting point would be a simple gap analysis (10).

You could alternatively purchase a copy of the standard document(1) for yourself and
attempt to decipher the requirements or maybe even attend a training course(11) to
understand in more detail what the requirements would be and have the opportunity to
question an expert.

Depending on your internal expertise the course of action could be quite different. If your
organisation has good energy management knowledge, even employing an energy
manager/officer then the considerations should be to improve management system
knowledge. Conversely if your organisation has good management system knowledge,
maybe already certified to ISO9001 or ISO14001 (or both!) its likely that there will already
be a good internal auditor and it will be important to improve energy management
knowledge.

If you have both then what are you waiting for! Implementation and certification should be
a relatively straightforward exercise, contact a certification body to investigate how your
existing management systems can be extended and to determine if they are up to speed
with ISO50001.

Something that is pretty important is to ensure that you have at least a high level energy
management strategy in place before you consider drafting up procedures for an energy
management system. Consider two basic questions, what do you want to achieve and what
resource do you have capable of achieving it?

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In Summary

An international standard is only part of the completion solution, an extremely valuable tool
but only one of the implements required for success. Implementing the standard alone does
not save you energy and therefore money. Only as part of a wider energy management
program will energy and costs reduce sustainably.

ISO50001 offers an internationally recognised approach to energy awareness, identification

of energy savings projects, legislation and energy procurement, a process that enables
employees with or without wider technical knowledge to contribute to sustained reductions.

Author
Richard Hipkiss
Product Director, digitalenergy
richard.hipkiss@digitalenergy.org.uk
www.digitalenergy.org.uk

14th December 2011

References and notes

1. The international standard ISO50001 can be purchased from BSi at

http://shop.bsigroup.com/en/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030206446
2. The Energy Services and Technology Association (ESTA) is a trade association of technology and service
providers offering energy advice and reductions (www.esta.org.uk)
3. The carbonexpressway is a six stage energy and carbon management plan developed by Information
Prophets Ltd. More details can be found at www.digitalenergy.org.uk/carbonexpressway.php
4. ISO14001 for Environmental Systems http://www.certificationeurope.com/iso-14001-environmental-
management-certification.html
5. The carbon trust standard is an recognition of an organisations year on year reduction of carbon
emissions. (www.carbontruststandard.com)
6. The carbon reduction commitment (CRC) is a mandatory carbon trading scheme introduced in 2010. For
more information refer to http://www.environment-
agency.gov.uk/business/topics/pollution/126698.aspx
7. Within the scope of the CRC the concept of early action metrics, which include the Carbon Trust
Standard and the installation of automatic metering (AMR) was encouraged to ensure participants were
prepared for the requirements of the scheme. (Early action metric and the recognition of automatic
metering (PDF, 150KB))
8. Display Energy Certificates are required for all public buildings in England, Wales and Northern Ireland if
greater than 1000m2 total floor areas.
(http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/displayenergycertificates)
9. digitalenergy is an online energy management system developed by Information Prophets Ltd. More
information can be found at www.digitalenergy.org.uk
10. A gap analysis is a straightforward consultancy service that can identify what an organisaiton needs to
consider implementing ISO50001. For more information please contact richard@i-prophets.com
11. There are a number of providers of training that covers the implementation and internal audit. Two
course are currently offered by Information Prophets in partnership with Certification Europe for
Implementation and Auditing. More information and booking can be found at
http://www.digitalenergy.org.uk/digitalenergyacademy.php

t 0845 003 9087 info@digitalenergy.org.uk

f 0808 206 3726 www.digitalenergy.org.uk