ISO 50001: What it is and what it is not

The International Standards Organization’s (ISO) energy management standard, ISO 50001: 2011 Energy management systems – Requirements with guidance for use has been available since June, 2011. Since then, 866 companies and organizations in 47 countries have adopted ISO 50001. While much has been written to explain what the standard does and how it offers value in the market, it’s also important to understand what ISO 50001 does not do.

What ISO 50001 is

ISO 50001 is intended to assist organizations to make better use of their existing energy-consuming assets by providing a consistent framework by which a wide variety of end-users – industrial, commercial, institutional, transportation and other – can evaluate energy use and develop sound strategies to improve their energy performance. To accomplish this objective ISO 50001 offers guidance in several areas including energy benchmarking, measurement, documentation, and reporting. This focus on data collection and reporting is intended to create transparency and facilitate communication on energy management within an organization.

In addition, ISO 50001 provides context for evaluating and prioritizing the implementation of energy-efficient technologies and a framework for encouraging energy efficiency throughout an organization’s supply chain. The standard was also made flexible enough to enable integration of an ISO 50001-based energy management system with other organizational management systems such as quality, environment, health and safety.

What ISO 50001 is not

While the ISO 50001 standard specifically engages organizations to manage energy, it’s important to understand that it is a management standard and not something akin to an energy code. The end user needs to define specific energy measurements such as absolute energy use vs. energy intensity as well as specific levels of energy performance, e.g. a prescriptive energy use reduction target. Also, conformance with the standard does not certify that specific level of energy performance has been achieved or that energy-using equipment or hardware conforms to an energy efficiency standard, e.g. like LEED. Although ISO 50001 addresses procurement of energy-using software it is not a substitute for Energy Star.

In addition, conformance is intended to be an ongoing process as opposed to an intermittent project-based approach towards energy efficiency. Once an organization becomes ISO 50001 conformant, it needs to continuously implement the energy management system to address energy use. One other belief is that the standard mainly encourages low-cost improvements, energy monitoring, and equipment maintenance best practices and not large-scale investments. It is true that adopters of ISO 50001 will need to implement best practices, but once they exhaust the “low-hanging fruit”, they need to identify and implement new energy efficiency measures in order to meet the energy efficiency goals they’ve set for themselves. This provides context to determine when and how to upgrade or replace energy-using applications or equipment that can optimize energy use.

How to Work with ISO 50001

To overcome this market definition barrier, stakeholders who wish to implement ISO 50001 have two options. The first option is to work with a Certified Practitioner in Energy Management Systems. These ANSI-accredited Certified Practitioners have completed a training program and passed a rigorous exam and possess the specialized expertise to help a facility implement ISO 50001.

In addition, the ISO Technical Committee that developed ISO 50001, TC242, is developing a set of Guidance Documents, which will provide technical background and application details for utilizing ISO 50001. The guidance documents are expected to be published by late 2013 to early 2014 and should be available on the ISO’s website.