|
The first meeting of ISO’s new project committee PC 242 which
is to develop an International Standard on energy management
was held on 8-10 September in Washington, DC, USA.
The future ISO 50001 will establish a framework for industrial
plants, commercial facilities or entire organisations to manage
energy. Targeting broad applicability across national economic
sectors, the standard could influence up to 60% of the world’s
energy use.
The meeting was attended by delegates from the ISO national
member bodies of 25 countries from all regions of the world,
as well as representation from the United Nations Industrial
Development Organization (UNIDO), which has liaison status
with PC 242. All the participating countries have existing
activities on energy management and have a strong interest
in also developing a harmonised solution at international
level.
As part of the proceedings, delegates described their various
initiatives in detail. For example, a presentation was given
by UNIDO on the preparatory work the organisation has carried
out to support the ISO process by researching energy management
needs in developing countries. This gave PC 242 an insight
into the different policies and situations around the world
which need to be taken into account in the development of
a globally relevant International Standard for energy management.
Excellent progress was made in the technical discussions
and a first working draft has already been created. A major
point of discussion is the need to ensure compatibility with
the existing suite of ISO management system standards. The
committee, therefore, took the key decision to base the draft
on the common elements found in all of ISO’s management system
standards.
This will ensure maximum compatibility with key standards
such as ISO 9001 for quality management and ISO 14001 for
environmental management.
The project committee is fully committed to an ambitious
schedule and aims to have ISO 50001 ready for publication
by the end of 2010.
ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden commented - "This first
meeting of PC 242 marks the launch of a new global approach
to systematically address energy performance in organisations
- pragmatically addressing energy efficiency and related climate
change impacts. It is fully in line with and supportive of
the global mobilisation on these major challenges and with
the IEA-ISO position paper on the contribution of International
Standards."
|
