Standard status
- Current published edition
- ISO 50001:2018 (second edition, published August 2018)
- Assessments conducted against
- The 2018 edition.
- Scheme type
- Management systems (energy)
ISO 50001 is the international standard for an energy management system, the way an organization manages its energy use, consumption and efficiency systematically rather than by occasional initiative. The system assists in ensuring that the organization knows where its energy actually goes, acts on the uses that matter most, and improves its energy performance continually. An organization certified to ISO 50001 has had that system assessed against the standard by a certification body. The current edition is ISO 50001:2018. A buyer relies on an ISO 50001 certificate through both the standard and the independent accreditation of the certification body that issued it.
What an energy management system is
An energy management system is the set of policies, processes and responsibilities through which an organization understands its energy use, decides where improvement matters, and makes that improvement happen and stick. ISO 50001 applies to any organization, whatever its type, size, location or culture, and whatever the quantity or kinds of energy it consumes. It covers the activities affecting energy performance that the organization manages and controls.
The standard stands apart from its siblings in one respect: it demands results of a particular kind. ISO 50001 requires the organization to demonstrate continual improvement of its energy performance, not only of the management system around it. The standard does not set levels of improvement to be achieved; how much and where are the organization's decisions. But a system that produces no demonstrable energy performance improvement is not meeting this standard, which makes ISO 50001 stricter than a purely systemic reading would suggest.
That demand is why the standard's machinery is quantitative. The system is built around an energy review, a baseline, and indicators, so that improvement is measured against evidence rather than asserted.
What ISO 50001 requires
The requirements are set out across seven areas, clauses 4 to 10, using the harmonized structure ISO now applies to its management system standards, with the plan-do-check-act cycle underneath. What distinguishes them is the quantitative planning machinery in clause 6.
Context, leadership and planning
The organization works out which internal and external issues affect what its energy management system is meant to deliver, identifies the interested parties who matter and their requirements, including the legal requirements that relate to its energy, and draws the system's boundaries. Top management demonstrates leadership and commitment, sets an energy policy, and assigns roles and authorities, including an energy management team. Planning addresses risks and opportunities and sets objectives and energy targets with plans to reach them. Then come the requirements that make this standard what it is. The organization:
• carries out an energy review: analyzing its energy use and consumption, identifying its significant energy uses, the areas and equipment where the energy actually goes, and identifying and prioritizing the opportunities to improve;
• establishes energy performance indicators that let it measure and monitor its performance;
• establishes an energy baseline against which change is measured, normalized where relevant factors demand it;
• plans the collection of the energy data all of this depends on.
Support and operation
The resources the system needs, competence of the people whose work affects energy performance, awareness, communication, and documented information. In operation, the organization plans and controls the processes tied to its significant energy uses, runs them against defined criteria, and considers energy performance in design and in procurement, so equipment, services and energy bought today do not lock in tomorrow's waste.
Performance evaluation and improvement
Energy performance, and the system itself, are monitored, measured, analyzed and evaluated, with measurement resting on the data collection plan; evaluation of compliance with the legal and other requirements that apply to its energy; internal audit; management review; and improvement, with nonconformity and corrective action handled and both the system and energy performance continually improved.
Certification is not the whole story
An ISO 50001 certificate is a certification body's judgment that an organization's energy management system meets the standard, bounded by the certificate's scope and the time of assessment. It does not say who examined the certification body.
That is what accreditation is for. ASCB assesses bodies certifying energy management systems against ISO/IEC 17021-1 and the sector-specific requirements that apply to a given scope, operating to ISO/IEC 17011, the international standard for accreditation bodies, as it does so.
An accredited ISO 50001 certificate rests on two independent checks, the organization's and the certifier's; without accreditation there is only the first.
Accreditation is a periodic, risk-based assessment of a certification body against the requirements of the relevant standard, carried out by sampling and reflecting what was found at the time of assessment. It is not a continuous or exhaustive check, and it is not a guarantee of any individual certification decision or of any certified organization's products, services or outcomes. What it provides is independent, repeated assessment of the body issuing certificates against the requirements of ISO/IEC 17021-1, including its impartiality and the consistency of its decisions.
Why an accredited ISO 50001 certificate carries more weight
Energy performance claims are increasingly relied on: in procurement, in corporate reporting, and in the schemes and incentives that reward demonstrated energy management. An ISO 50001 certificate is a claim that an organization's energy performance is managed and improving, and the certificate is only as credible as the body that issued it. Accreditation makes the credential checkable where those claims are used: the certificate’s current status on IRQAO, the independent register and validation service recording certificates issued by ASCB-accredited bodies, and the certifier’s accreditation, with its scope, on ASCB’s verify page.
A buyer or a report reader citing an ISO 50001 certificate from an ASCB-accredited body is citing something verifiable rather than asserted, and the way to keep it that way in procurement wording is to ask for accredited certification, not certification alone.
Is ISO 50001 certification the same as accreditation?
No, and the two words are often used as if they mean the same thing. Certification applies to the organization: a certification body certifies that an organization's energy management system meets ISO 50001. Accreditation applies to the certification body: an accreditation body assesses the certification body against ISO/IEC 17021-1. An organization is certified to ISO 50001. A certification body is accredited against ISO/IEC 17021-1. Accreditation is the last check in the sequence: accreditation bodies are not themselves accredited by a higher body, and what stands behind an accreditation body is the standard it works to. ASCB works to ISO/IEC 17011, the international standard setting the requirements for accreditation bodies.
How to check an ISO 50001 certificate
There are two separate checks, and they answer different questions. To confirm a specific certificate, verify it on the register on which the issuing body records its certificates; for ISO 50001 certificates issued by ASCB-accredited bodies, that is IRQAO. To confirm that the certification body itself is accredited, and to see the full scope of its accreditation, use ASCB's verify page. The two checks together are stronger than either alone: the first confirms the certificate is current, the second confirms the body that issued it was independently assessed and for what.
Where ISO 50001 sits among the standards
ISO 50001 is the certifiable requirements standard for energy management:
• ISO/IEC 17021-1: the standard a certification body is assessed against to certify ISO 50001, and the accreditation behind an accredited ISO 50001 certificate.
• The ISO 50000 family: supporting standards on implementation guidance, energy audits, baselines and performance measurement that put detail behind an ISO 50001 system.
• ISO 14001: the environmental management system standard, a natural companion where energy is managed as part of a wider environmental program; the two share the harmonized structure.
• ISO 9001 and ISO 45001: other widely held management system standards sharing the same high-level structure, so an organization can run them as one integrated system.
Common questions
What is ISO 50001?
ISO 50001 is the international standard for an energy management system. It sets out what an organization's system for managing its energy use, consumption and efficiency must address, built around an energy review, a baseline and performance indicators.
What does ISO 50001 certification mean?
It means a certification body has assessed an organization's energy management system and judged it to meet the requirements of ISO 50001, at the scope stated on the certificate and at the time of assessment.
What is the latest version of ISO 50001?
ISO 50001:2018, the second edition, published in August 2018.
Does ISO 50001 require actual energy savings?
It requires demonstrated continual improvement of energy performance, measured against the organization's baseline and indicators, without setting levels of improvement to be achieved. How much and where are the organization's decisions; that improvement is happening must be demonstrable.
What is an energy review?
The analysis at the heart of the system: analyzing the organization's energy use and consumption, identifying the significant energy uses where the energy actually goes, and identifying and prioritizing the opportunities to improve.
Who is ISO 50001 for?
Any organization, whatever its type, size, location or culture, and whatever the quantity or kinds of energy it uses. The system covers the activities affecting energy performance that the organization manages and controls.
What is the difference between ISO 50001 certification and accreditation?
Certification is of the organization against ISO 50001. Accreditation is of the certification body against ISO/IEC 17021-1. Accreditation is the independent check on the certifier behind the certificate.
How do I check an ISO 50001 certificate is genuine?
Verify the certificate on the register on which the issuing body records it, and separately confirm on
ASCB's verify page that the certification body is accredited and for what scope.
How to apply
How to apply for accreditation to certify other organizations against ISO 50001, under ISO/IEC 17021-1, including the process, the fees and the application documents, is set out on Become Accredited.