Reducing your organisation’s energy consumption helps support a healthier planet and has financial advantages. Implementing ISO 50001 benefits companies looking to facilitate energy savings, meet legal requirements, and gain a competitive edge by contributing to meeting corporate social responsibility targets.
ISO 50001:2018 is a globally recognised ISO standard that provides a structured approach for organisations to create an effective Energy Management System (EnMS). The system provides good practice guidelines on gathering accurate energy usage data and developing a plan to improve operational efficiency. The standard is based on a continual improvement model so it requires an organisation to continually evaluate the success of its energy consumption plan and keep improving it.
Here are some further ways that an EnMS can support your business:
If your organisation is certified to ISO 50001, then you are automatically compliant with Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) Phase 2, so there is no requirement to complete an ESOS assessment or appoint an ESOS lead assessor to review any of your paperwork. All you have to do is tell the Environment Agency that you are compliant.
Energy consumption is rapidly increasing internationally so improving energy efficiency and climate change challenges make up a key part of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the United Nations 2030 Agenda. ISO 50001 helps organise processes and procedures that can contribute to the achievement of goals 7 and 13.
Streamlined Energy And Carbon Reporting (SECR) now means that large organisations must publish their energy and carbon emissions on an annual basis, with the UK government aiming to improve energy efficacy by at least 20% by 2030. With ISO 50001, this process will be quicker as you will already be documenting your energy usage and actively seeking energy efficiency measures.
Please contact us to learn more about ISO Management Systems and how they can help your organisation improve its environmental performance and achieve its sustainable development goals. The qualification date for ESOS (Phase 3) is 31st December 2022 so there’s plenty of time to implement ISO 50001 before this deadline.
Written by Mike Heath – Management Systems Consultant at Vassallo Associates
