Using energy efficiently helps organizations save money as well as helping to conserve resources and tackle climate change. ISO 50001 supports organizations in all sectors to use energy more efficiently, through the development of an energy management system.

What is ISO 50001?

Organisations are not able to control energy prices, national country policy or the global economy, however, an organisation can improve the way they manage energy. Improving energy performance can provide benefits for an organisation by maximising the use of energy sources and energy related assets. The objective being to reduce both energy costs and consumption.

The objective of ISO 50001 is to provide organisations with a framework for integrating energy performance into their everyday management practices. International organisations will have access to an internationally harmonised standard for implementation across the organisation with a consistent methodology for identifying and implementing improvements.

Developing an Energy Management System

ISO 50001 is based on the management system model of continual improvement also used for other well-known standards such as ISO 9001 or ISO 14001. This makes it easier for organizations to integrate energy management into their overall efforts to improve quality and environmental management. ISO 50001 provides a framework of requirements for organizations to:

- Develop a policy for more efficient use of energy

- Fix targets and objectives to meet the policy

- Use data to better understand and make decisions about energy use

- Measure the results

- Review how well the policy works, and

- Continually improve energy management.