EN 16001 / ISO 50001 - Energy Management System – EnMS

Why Energy Management System Certification?

Concerns about carbon emissions, along with the push towards a low carbon economy and a heightened awareness of the risks posed by volatile fuel prices, mean that organizations are under pressure to optimize energy use as never before.

There's been a rapid shift in public attitudes about the environment in the 12 years since Kyoto, but business attitudes have been slower to change. Combating climate change costs money and the relatively low price of energy in the late nineties and early years of the new century meant there was little incentive to cut consumption.

The oil price shocks of 2008 changed all that. Even modest energy users were forced into a fundamental reappraisal of consumption, with organizations scrambling to squeeze more out of every gallon of fuel, every kilowatt-hour of electricity and every cubic metre of gas. And there could be bigger issues at stake. According to official estimates, the UK could be importing as much as 80 per cent of the gas it uses by 2020. Energy security is a new priority for government.

"We could become very heavily import dependent," warns Malcolm Wicks MP, the Prime Minister's special representative on international energy issues. "The starting point has to be energy efficiency across all sectors. This hits the button in terms of climate and it certainly hits the button in terms of energy security. But it's about business efficiency as well - businesses of all sorts waste a great deal of energy and there are ways of becoming more energy efficient."

Arguably, what organizations need is a road map to improved efficiency: "Once you have an agreed structure in place and a policy that has been signed off by the board, you have top management buy-in," says Ian Richardson, BSI committee manager for energy. "Everybody from the top down to the workforce knows exactly what the policy is going to be."

Consider Future – Become Energy Responsible Organization

BS EN 16001 Energy management systems offers such a road map to organizations. This new standard has been created to help organizations improve energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and drive down energy costs. The standard applies to all energy-related activities under the control of an organization. For example, it takes account of the power used by machinery and the energy needed to heat office buildings. These "energy aspects" represent elements of an organization's activities, goods or services that can affect energy use.

Organizations however large or small - in any sector - can benefit from the approaches set out in the new standard. These include big multi-site industries, public sector bodies and SMEs - including those that might not have used a management system standard before.

The relevance of the standard to all parts of UK plc is reflected by the diversity of the organizations taking part in BSI's current implementation pilot. These include passenger rail operator Virgin Trains, the bearing manufacturer SKF, leading milk business Robert Wiseman Dairies plc, the City of London Corporation - the local authority for London's financial heart - and ND Metering Solutions, which designs and manufactures advanced electricity metering equipment.

Initial findings indicate that the creation of an energy management system provides organizations with a mechanism to turn energy efficiency into a key performance indicator, alongside more traditional KPIs such as safety, performance and customer satisfaction.

The standard requires that organizations establish their own minimum reduction targets for each significant energy aspect identified in an initial review. These targets can be expressed in a number of ways, such as the amount of energy consumed per kilogram, per square metre or per item produced. Organizations must establish reliable ways of measuring consumption data, such as automatic metering of electrical energy, as well as gas and water use.

The standard covers energy aspects under the control of the organization, so indirect energy consumption, such as fuel used by employees driving to work, is beyond its remit. But it does mean that organizations must consider energy efficiency when procurement decisions are made for machinery, raw materials and services. Once the standard is established, it is expected to cascade down through the supply chain, with organizations encouraging suppliers to conform in order to meet their own targets for corporate social responsibility, or embodied energy in their products and services. Energy management is based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) methodology. The "plan" component includes establishing the objectives and processes needed to deliver results in accordance with the energy policy; the "do" element concerns implementation, while the "check" dimension includes monitoring and measuring processes. The "act" requirement focuses on the need to continually improve performance of the energy management system. Critically, the new standard allows organizations to lock-in a top-to-bottom commitment to energy efficiency.  Legislation is likely to be an increasingly important driver for take-up of the standard. The implementation of the government's Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) in April 2010 will force energy efficiency even further up the agenda. CRC is legally binding and will target large public and private sector organizations across the UK, including supermarkets, banks, local authorities and government departments. BS EN 16001 will give these organizations the systematic tools to continue to match the inevitable tightening of the CRC in coming years. Certification to the new European standard is not obligatory, but does provide a number of important advantages: it provides proof of adherence to industry best practice, with regular independent assessments to ensure that an organization is continually improving and refining its activities. "The benefits of being certified to this standard are that it enables you to demonstrate you are managing your energy consumption, which will save you money. It also means you are in a position to reduce your carbon footprint, so you've demonstrated your commitment to energy efficiency and protecting the environment. "Organizations have to have a position now - it's no longer acceptable to say we don't bother about energy consumption. This standard has been developed to address that issue - and to get it up the agenda in business."

What we offer:-

With one of the largest pool of environment specialists having doctorate / PhD in environment science / management, we offer consulting, training and documentation services for energy management system.